The other day I was looking to order some new dining room chairs from Pottery Barn when I remembered an article I had read while on a Southwest flight talking about a startup called Cardpool. Cardpool allowed consumers to sell unused gift cards and for buyers to acquire these gift cards at a discount to their face value. I decided to check Cardpool out. The company, a San Francisco startup was acquired in late 2011 by Safeway’s gift card division.
Cardpool offers a variet of physical or online gift cards at any store or restaurant you can think of shopping or dining at; even movie theaters. They even have gasoline gift cards which can be a savior in this day and age. I found cards for stores such as Banana Repbulic, Anne Taylor, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Home Depot, and my all time favorite Target from discounts from 5-35% off the face value of the card. They even offer cards from restaurants such as Morton’s Steakhouse, Maggianos, Chilis and many others.
You can also sell unused gift cards you might…click below to read more have. Well for my Pottery Barn order I was able to buy two gift cards totaling $300 in face value at a 11% discount for only $267. This was a great deal on top of the sale and coupons that Pottery Barn was offering me as well.
There are numerous startups offering discounted gift cards such as Gift Card Rescue, Rackup, Swap A Gift, and Plastic Jungle. With everyone looking to save a buck and with most of the cards at places most of us go to, I thought this was a find to share with everyone.