Design Crafters

In yesterday’s photo Christmas cards blog we started to talk about photo gift cards. Well, today I’d like to share with you some tidbits of information about gift cards you may find very useful.

Gift cards are great gifts because it allows people to get what they really want. There are however some things to pay attention to.

As mentioned yesterday, if the company has any indication of going out of business, you may want to avoid purchasing a gift card from them. The recipient may not be able to redeem it in time and that would be money down the drain for you.

Pay attention to the print on the back. In some states there is a law that gift cards can’t expire. They can however start to take off fees if not used within a certain timeframe, until there’s nothing left on them. It’s usually two years, which is my opinion is a reasonable timeframe to use it. The policy is usually printed on the back.

I’ve actually heard of people giving their non-used gift cards to their friends and family as gifts. In one case the gift card was so old that there was nothing left on it due to inactive fees. Whoops. In the second case, it was a gift card the recipient originally gave the giver. Double whoops. In the third case, it was so old the company didn’t even exist anymore. So be very careful when you re-gift gift cards.

An interesting article I ran across on CBSNews.com regarding gift cards, sparked the topic of today’s blog. Although the article was bad news (which I’ll go into in a moment), I wanted to share some good news first.

Did you know you can make not only photo Christmas cards, but photo gift cards as well?! Two years ago my son received a Toys R Us gift card with a picture of him and his Auntie on it. She apparently went online, ordered the gift card and uploaded the desired picture she wanted on it. Talk about a great idea! That made the gift card so much more special to him. Of course once he used it up, he kept the card even though there’s no money left on it. - Just a fun thought for you.

Going back to today’s article….
It turns out that Sharper Image gift cards are currently worthless. The company apparently filed bankruptcy and announced they are temporarily suspending the acceptance of gift cards. But don’t throw them out yet, just incase they start accepting them again (which has been known to happen with other companies).

That brings up a good point though. If you have gift cards, it may be in your best interest to use them right away, just in case company goes out of business. Also, if you buy a gift card for someone, make sure it’s a store that doesn’t show signs of going out of business.

You can see the full article at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/03/business/main3902646.shtml