CardSwap.ca

I got a few gift cards over the Christmas break that I don't necessarily see myself using so I was looking at how to monetize it.  I found cardswap and remember them on Dragons Den.  I think the Boston Pizza dude ended up partnering with them which would explain why there are so many boston pizza gift cards on there. 

The idea is they buy your gift cards from you for a fraction of the price and sell it for a slightly higher rate than they bought it at and that's where they make the money.  The money you get and can pay for a gift card depends on its popularity.  As an example a $25 starbucks gift card sells for $25 or (4% off) which isn't an amazing deal but that's almost a free drink for every $100.  You can find less popular gift cards for more of a discount --> LifeExperiences gift card are almost 30% off.  In terms of selling, I got a good rate for an HBC gift card ~90% while a not so great rate for Spring Shoes ~75%.

I bought a starbucks gift card because I figured I was getting 4% off plus another 1% of from using my credit card to pay for it and that's 5 more % off than I had before.  I also wanted to try it out and see how it goes.  The concern I can see is things getting lost in the mail.  I wonder how that is handled.

Categories: frugal