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Over the past few months, I have bought a LOT of gift cards. Sometimes people have asked me which is the worst and best gift card to buy this holiday season
(SEE ALSO: Reselling $18,030 of gift cards (was it worth it?))
(SEE ALSO: Another day, another $900 in profit from reselling gift cards)
Mostly I have been buying gift cards in order to resell, so I have an idea of which is the best gift card to buy for that purpose. But I also enjoyed this article taking a scientific approach to figure out the best gift cards to buy – I assume if you are actually going to use them as Christmas or other presents
Ranking the best gift cards to buy
The study ranked each type of gift card in 5 categories – gift card popularity, average purchase discount for buyers, average resale value for sellers, happiness of receiving a gift card (Note: we conducted a survey for this) and shipping charges
Here were the top 5 best gift cards to buy in each of those categories (I omitted shipping charges as only 2 companies charged for gift cards)
Gift Card Popularity (measured by Google searches)
- Amazon
- Walmart
- Itunes
- Target
- Starbucks
Average purchase discount for buyers
Naturally there is a negative correlation between the popularity of a gift card and the average discount that you can buy the card at.
- 1-800-Flowers
- Dress Barn
- Express
- H&M
- Petco
Average resell value for sellers
But what if little Johnny doesn’t WANT your 1-800-Flowers gift card? Here are the top 5 cards for resell value. This matches my experience where gas and grocery cards give the best resell value
- Safeway
- Walmart
- Amazon
- Apple
- Best Buy
Happiness factor
- Chipotle
- Amazon
- Dunkin Donuts
- Target
- Chick-Fil-A
Overall best gift card to buy
The overall best gift card to buy (according to this study) was a Target gift card. Rounding out the top 10 best gift cards to buy were McDonalds (really?!), Gamestop, Chipotle, Chick-Fil-A, Amazon, Walmart, CVS, Apple and Costco gift cards.
How to get started gift card reselling
If you’re interested in gift card reselling, you may want to check out my beginner’s primer on gift card reselling. It’s not super complicated (buy low, sell high). You will not believe how hard it was for me to resist the “Buy Lowe’s, sell High” pun there….
The big tool that I use for gift card reselling is this gift card scanner (typing in tons of gift card numbers and PINs is annoying, even if I do have an army of “minions” that I sometimes pay / coerce into typing as part of “homeschool” 😀
I also use these Scotty Peelers (to peel off the PINs on cards, though you have to be careful).
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
How is costco not #1? Since a costco cash card can bypass membership requirements, they sell for a premium to face value.
I didn’t know a costco gift card can bypass membership how does it work?
You can buy items in the warehouse (but not special order items, and there are a few other restrictions). You don’t get the sale prices members get, just the regular shelf price.