4 ms·

I keep wondering why people buy Amazon/Netflix Gift cards. Great, you converted 50$ into 50$ that can only be used on Amazon, and people may end up not using at

I keep wondering why people buy Amazon/Netflix Gift cards. Great, you converted 50$ into 50$ that can only be used on Amazon, and people may end up not using at all. This is also financing with negative interest rate.

hrktb 7y ago
It’s super niche, but I have two specific use cases: - loading an account family members have access to, without linking to the main credit card. - loading foreign accounts, where small transactions are painful with most cards.
nlawalker 7y ago
It's $50 that can only be used on Amazon, but for a lot of people that's a pretty small limitation, especially relative to the utility of being able to transmit it over pretty much any medium.
lwf 7y ago
If you don't have a credit or debit card it's one of the only ways to pay for the service, save asking to borrow a friend's card. According to the FDIC, 6.5% of American households lacked a bank account at all in 2017.[1] [1]: https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/ https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/
- airstrike 7y ago
  But you could always go with one those reloadable debit cards, no? Though those usually come with a fixed setup fee of, say, $5
  - banana_giraffe 7y ago
    It's actually fairly hard to get money onto those without paying a fee (if you don't have a bank account). Most of the obvious ways to get money onto them involve "Visa ReadyLink", and that comes with a service fee from $2 to $5. If I recall correctly, some even have monthly fees if they get below a certain level. Amazon gift cards can be purchased without a fee most of the time, and with less friction in the store then actually dealing with the service desk in the store that does ReadyLink.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      >some even have monthly fees if they get below a certain level If I receive one for some reason, I've learned to go straight to my computer and load it into my Amazon account.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    Reloadable debit cards nickle and dime you with as many ridiculous fees as possible. A poor tax basically.
techsupporter 7y ago
I do this for two reasons: 1) Hitting minimum spend requirements for a credit card bonus or discount (e.g. 10% statement credit at [Store of the Week] with a max credit of $10 or something). 2) I have a Target credit card and almost everything in Target, including gift cards, is discounted by 5% if I pay for it with Target's credit card. That makes my Hulu subscription or Nintendo Switch digital purchases 5% cheaper in the absence of anything else.
v64 7y ago
Buying Amazon gift cards gives me the best points<->cash conversion through my credit card rewards program
eswat 7y ago
These days I fund my Netflix account using digital gift cards purchased through PayPal's eBay store, since they frequently sell them at a 15% discount. If it wasn’t for that I would just pay Netflix directly.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  ...how exactly are they selling $1 for 85c?
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Liquid cash is worth more than store credit. Your "$1" is actually 1 StoreBuck.
ghaff 7y ago
There are some practical reasons given in this thread. An Amazon card is about as fungible as you get. For me at least, it's even better than a cash card; these days I'll just put that value into Amazon anyway. Amazon cards are pretty popular when companies have small dollar giveaways of various sort. More generally, in a lot of circles in the US at least, giving cash as a gift is often seen as a bit crass. So, if you really don't know what to buy a person, a gift card is seen as an at least minimally thoughtful gift that lets the recipient choose what they want. Amazon admittedly tends to fail the minimally thoughtful test but that's the story with gift cards generally.
benbristow 7y ago
As far as gift cards go Amazon are the most useful. I usually buy them from my friends for slightly less than their credit value. Win for them as they get cash, win for me as I'll definitely use it and I save some money.

hrktb 7y ago

It’s super niche, but I have two specific use cases: - loading an account family members have access to, without linking to the main credit card. - loading foreign accounts, where small transactions are painful with most cards.

nlawalker 7y ago

It's $50 that can only be used on Amazon, but for a lot of people that's a pretty small limitation, especially relative to the utility of being able to transmit it over pretty much any medium.

lwf 7y ago

If you don't have a credit or debit card it's one of the only ways to pay for the service, save asking to borrow a friend's card. According to the FDIC, 6.5% of American households lacked a bank account at all in 2017.[1] [1]: https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/ https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/

airstrike 7y ago
But you could always go with one those reloadable debit cards, no? Though those usually come with a fixed setup fee of, say, $5
- banana_giraffe 7y ago
  It's actually fairly hard to get money onto those without paying a fee (if you don't have a bank account). Most of the obvious ways to get money onto them involve "Visa ReadyLink", and that comes with a service fee from $2 to $5. If I recall correctly, some even have monthly fees if they get below a certain level. Amazon gift cards can be purchased without a fee most of the time, and with less friction in the store then actually dealing with the service desk in the store that does ReadyLink.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >some even have monthly fees if they get below a certain level If I receive one for some reason, I've learned to go straight to my computer and load it into my Amazon account.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  Reloadable debit cards nickle and dime you with as many ridiculous fees as possible. A poor tax basically.

techsupporter 7y ago

I do this for two reasons: 1) Hitting minimum spend requirements for a credit card bonus or discount (e.g. 10% statement credit at [Store of the Week] with a max credit of $10 or something). 2) I have a Target credit card and almost everything in Target, including gift cards, is discounted by 5% if I pay for it with Target's credit card. That makes my Hulu subscription or Nintendo Switch digital purchases 5% cheaper in the absence of anything else.

v64 7y ago

Buying Amazon gift cards gives me the best points<->cash conversion through my credit card rewards program

eswat 7y ago

These days I fund my Netflix account using digital gift cards purchased through PayPal's eBay store, since they frequently sell them at a 15% discount. If it wasn’t for that I would just pay Netflix directly.

akhilcacharya 7y ago
...how exactly are they selling $1 for 85c?
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Liquid cash is worth more than store credit. Your "$1" is actually 1 StoreBuck.

ghaff 7y ago

There are some practical reasons given in this thread. An Amazon card is about as fungible as you get. For me at least, it's even better than a cash card; these days I'll just put that value into Amazon anyway. Amazon cards are pretty popular when companies have small dollar giveaways of various sort. More generally, in a lot of circles in the US at least, giving cash as a gift is often seen as a bit crass. So, if you really don't know what to buy a person, a gift card is seen as an at least minimally thoughtful gift that lets the recipient choose what they want. Amazon admittedly tends to fail the minimally thoughtful test but that's the story with gift cards generally.

benbristow 7y ago

As far as gift cards go Amazon are the most useful. I usually buy them from my friends for slightly less than their credit value. Win for them as they get cash, win for me as I'll definitely use it and I save some money.