Introduction
For the longest time, I never bothered to record my merchant gift cards. I eventually started about a year ago when I was buying stolen gift cards from FUraise.com, and just had to keep a record of all the gift cards. At the time, it was used mainly to track which electronic gift cards I had used and the balances, but now it’s evolved into something more complex. Let’s look at the reasons why you should record all gift cards. By the way, I don’t record VGC cards; mainly because I keep them all along with the receipts already.
Why you should have an online record of all gift cards
- So you can access the gift cards at work
- So you can access the gift cards at the restaurant
- So you can access the gift cards on your phone
- So you can remember which gift cards were used on which order number
- So when the merchant cancels or refunds your order, you know which gift cards should have a balance
First off, I keep the gift cards in a Google Drive spreadsheet. I do it there because 1) it’s fairly secure, 2) it’s easily accessible and 3) ease of entry. I realize if someone hacked my Google account, then I’m vulnerable, but that’s also why you should set up 2 factor authentication to your Google account. I could use one of those secure password programs but that would drastically reduce the ease of use.
So you can access it at work
If you have a desk job and an eBay deal pops up, but your eBay gift cards are left at home. By the time you get home, the deal is dead.
So you can access it at restaurants
I’m sure you’ve seen these tiny machines at restaurants like Outback, Red Robin, and Olive Garden. I love them. I HATE HATE HATE waiting for my check and then waiting for the waiter to run my card, etc. The only thing I don’t like about them is that the tip defaults to 20%. I also like to fill out the survey at the end, especially when the food takes too long to come out. I think they are a win-win in the casual restaurant industry.
Anyway, back to my story, the wife and I were driving by the Ogizzle this weekend and decided to stop in. As soon as I pulled into the restaurant, I may have muttered, “Ugh, I left my OG gift cards at home.” Then when I saw the machine, it pained me even more because you can now enter e-gcs into the machine. So if I had just entered my physical GCs into my spreadsheet, I would have been able to use them. Oh well, now I know.
So you can access it on your phone
This is really the same as above, but just at places that don’t have the kiosks, like a retail store or something.
So you remember which gift cards were used for which order
Whether you are a reseller or not, eventually you’ll want to know the order number that you used the gift cards. This is key for the following reason:
So when a retailer cancels your order, you know which gift cards should have a balance
With so many retailers banning resellers lately, eventually you will get a cancelled order. And when that happens, the retailer will refund the gift cards you used. Well if you threw the gift cards away, then expect a HUGE HEADACHE. Thinking about it makes me shiver. As a matter of fact, I know Worst Buy still owes a refund back to my gift cards for a cancelled order. I wouldn’t know this if I didn’t record which gift cards I had used on the order.
What’s in my spreadsheet
Here are the fields in my spreadsheet:
- Store
- Source (did I buy the GC from Staples, eBay, etc)
- Email (I have multiple email accounts so need to know which email address has the gift card)
- Added date
- Original Amount
- Price Paid
- Order # (original order #)
- Gift Card Number
- Pin
- Remaining Balance
- Last Used Date
- Comments
- Order #1
- Order #2
- Order #3
- This goes up to Order #6 just bec Worst Buy cancelled that many orders
Conclusion
I’m up to 1100 rows in my spreadsheet now. I’ll add more once I enter all of my physical gift cards to the spreadsheet. If you’re not doing this now, START! Trust me. You’ll thank me later. I just summed up my “remaining balance” column and it took all of 1 click. See, you can’t do that if you didn’t have a spreadsheet.
On another note, Just FYI on those kiosks you can change the tip amount.
Yeah I know that Audrey; I would rather it default to 15%. But I certainly understand WHY they default to 20 instead of say 0.
I did think probably be aware of that!
im up to 4500 records, just keep in mind not to put too many cards with active balance…. like I wouldnt need $5000 worth of Best buy GC’s loaded on my spreadsheet at one time, but I will have a reasonable $500-$800 and then just add the rest later.. That way it minimizes my losses if my account was hacked.
Hahaha 4500 records…. I forgot you were the HH reseller. Very good point indeed though about not adding them ALL.
I use the gyft app. Keeps track of them all and pulls balances for many big brand cards. It’s free.
I don’t think that app is going to be scalable to 1000 gift cards
Haha, true. And they don’t let you enter or manage them online, only the app. That would be a major pain
Haha yup, that’s not gonna work for my workflow, but if it works for you, great.
To track the GC card info balance, have you consider using Evernote? I usually just take a picture of it, whether it is the card, or the balance from a paper receipt or on computer screen, and then noting the store name. When you need to look for it, you just do a search for the store name, and the notes should be in chronological order so you know which one is most up to date. It saves you time from reading from and entering into Google Sheet on your phone, which we all know is a pain.
I have a spreadsheet for purchasing info, since I will be at a computer anyway to go through a portal. MPX is different, but you can still do screenshot of the purchase and then Evernote it.
I think someone has mentioned it, but I have not tried it.
Do you track portal cash back on GC purchases too?
I track portal points using a different method. https://milesperday.com/2015/12/how-i-keep-track-of-all-my-manufactured-spend-portal-shopping-and-reselling/