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So you've got a gift card and need some help getting your value from it. Over the last several years, many sites have sprung up to help you buy, sell, exchange, or cash out your gift cards. Unfortunately, many of the sites below have very few listings. Additionally, there are always eBay or Craigslist, but we can't recommend them for gift cards due to the high potential for fraud, especially on Craigslist.

If you come across a site not on this list, or information that needs to be corrected, please let us know. If you are one of the services we list below, please contact us, we'd love to talk to you and make sure the information we list about you is correct. (List updated 5/18/11)

Site Description
Domain registered
Open-loop
Closed-loop
If you are buying
If you are selling
# Buy Retailers
# Cards listed
Status
Last updated
abcgiftcards.com When I originally looked at them (8/08) they had few listings. More recently (4/29/10) they claim to be the "largest online secondary discounted gift card marketplace." They also claim to beat any competitors quote and if your card isn't listed among the three pages of merchants you can contact them directly for a quote.
2/17/2008
No
Yes
10-25% off
pay 62-87%
~180
tons
Active
4/29/2010
Biddees A strange gift card auction site where you must buy credits and use those to pay for gift cards. To view the price of a gift card costs credits. Every time somone views the price the price drops. What happens to the odd credits you can't use? They claim that every time you purchase these credits 15% of the order amount is donated to the nonprofit of your choice (you can choose from their list of ten charities).
3/25/2009
Yes
Yes
not apparent
not apparent
some
Active
4/29/2010
BuyGiftCard.ca Canada centric site tha buys and sells gift cards. Gift cards (like most sites) must be mailed in to complete the transaction and then funds are deposited via PayPal or what they call and "email money transfer." Not sure what that is. Few cards currently listed on the site for sale.
2/4/2009
No
Yes
~75
few
Active
5/11/2010
CardAvenue

CardAvenue began as a site where you could buy, sell, and trade gift cards. More recently they have changed their business model to become a gift card registry.

"Create a registry of gift cards you would like to receive for just about any occasion (including weddings, birthdays, graduations and Festivus). Friends and family can then buy new or discounted gift cards that are on your registry via the site."

They don't sell cards directly but list cards from many of the main secondary marketplaces where discounted gift cards can be purchased, making them a convenient place to search many sites like CardPool, Plastic Jungle, GiftCards.com, ABCgiftcards, and Ebay. They list a ton of cards.
11/3/2003
No
Yes
 (indireclty through other sites listings) n/a many hundreds many hundreds
Active
5/18/2011
CardHub on Facebook CardHub is an information site for credit cards. The wall on their facebook page is often useds a a message board by people wanting to trade gift cards. This appears to be very infrequently used.
n/a
Yes
Yes
case-by-case
case-by-case
any
few
Active
5/11/2010
CardHub Social Gift Card Exchange CardHub is an information site for credit cards. They also have a site specifically for buying and selling gift cards which they call a gift card exchange. They do not buy or sell directly but connect buyers and sellers.

3/21/2000
Yes
Yes
8-40% off (AVG ~15%)
not apparent
not apparent
some
Active
5/11/2010
CardJar This site is currently in Beta and has very few listings
4/4/2006
No
Yes
Deadpool
5/11/2010
Cardlimbo.com.au This site is focused on the Australian market and as far as we know is one of the two players to serve that market exclusively. As with most new sites, they have few cards listed and a very small variety of cards.
11/21/2009
No
Yes
10-20% off
pay 85%
~50
many
Active
4/29/2010
cardnap.com.au Another Australian market company with very few listings. It is a simple buy/sell site. You sign up to sell them your card for somewhere below face value (they don't say how much unless you try to sell a card) and you can buy cards for a discount.
2010?
No
Yes
8-20% off
Not apparent
~60
some
Deadpool
4/14/11
Cardnap The first site that allows you to search all the main gift card secondary marketplaces (including Plastic Jungle, Cardpool, and GiftCardRescue) for the best deal both buying and selling cards. Also includes a balance checker. The site checks other gift card secondary marketsplaces to find the most money for selling your card or the best discount on available cards. 1/19/2010 No Yes (checks other sites) (checks other sites) ~100 ~100 Active 4/14/11
CardPool The site buys and sells gift cards. They price the cards (what they pay, what you pay) based on how popular they are. This is a new startup (as of 2/19/10) and has few cards so far, but their model is clean and reasonable.
5/29/2003
No
Yes
5-30% off
60-86%
over 100
some
Active
4/29/2010
CardsUwant.com A pure auction site where the card owner holds on to the card until the auction closes. The site takes about a 5% fee. Very few listings as of 1/27/10 and the ones they have appears to be seeds, not actual customer listings. The site seems to load very slowly.
4/30/2009
No
Yes
not apparent
not apparent
requires login
few
Active
5/11/2010
CardSwap.ca Canada only. As of 4/29/10 lists about 300 gift cards selling for discounts of anywhere from 10 to 25%. You can sell a card for 6% of the sale price, minimum $4.50. They don't actually buy your card but list it on their site, so someone has to buy it before you get paid. You hold the card until it sells and are responsible for the shipping.
12/22/2008
No
Yes
10-25%
up to 94%
any retailer
tons
Active
5/11/2010
cash4giftcards A very basic one page service that offers to buy your gift card. You fill out a form and presumably get an email telling you if they will buy it and for how much. They also offer the ability to trade for other gift cards for one of 50 types of gift cards in their inventory. Uniquely, they will buy expired gift cards for up to 25% of face value although with the new Federal gift card rules (as of 8/22/10) even gift cards that say they are expired can probably be exchanged with the reatailer for a new one.
3/1/2004
Unsure
Yes
up to 75%
must submit form
Active
8/22/10
CashFromCards.com Transfer some or all of your balance on Visa, Amex, MasterCard, or Discover gift cards to PayPal instantly. (Due to difficulties with merchant accounts, this site is not currently active.)
3/3/2008
Yes
No
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
CertificateSwap.com Buy, sell, and trade gift cards. Exchanges done by mail. This site includes some annoying advertising. Their "certificates" are overwhelmingly for travel (airlines, rental cars).
6/8/2003
No
Yes
5-20%
Not apparent
login necessary
tons
Active
5/11/2010
craigslist Probably the riskiest option, but there are listings for gift cards on craigslist and you can certainly list yours. Might be a good choice for gift cards to local only stores.
9/11/1997
Yes
Yes
        
Active
5/11/2010
CardWoo Another secondary marketplace for gift cards. They do send you a free shipping envelope, but they require that you send in your cards before knowing how much you are going to get for them and we've heard they offer well below what other gift card exchange do, but since they are run by cash4gold (the As Seen on TV gold buying outfit), this wouldn't be surprising.
9/21/2009
No
Yes
1-30%
Not apparent
login necessary
few
Active
8/2/10
DFWbid.com They call this site "A revolutionary auction with a twist." The twist is that every once in a while they will offer gift cards for a penny. With a few hours a day on the site for six months, one user was able to purchase $3,000 worth of gift cards for $400. For the curious, that works out to about $6.75/hour assuming she took weekends off. That is not including the $2.99 it costs to join any particular auction. The site has lots of variety but it isn't clear how many of each type of card they auction there is. Probably not the place to go to get a discounted gift card unless you have lots of free time and nothing better to do.
Site appears to be dead now as of 8/27/10.
12/24/2008
Yes
Yes
varies
not apparent
not apparent

Deadpool
8/27/2010
eBay A ton of listings. You can auction/sell your own card there or buy others. Probably any card you want is available there. Beware of fraud! Here is a link on the rules for selling gift cards on eBay. You are only allowed to list one gift card per week. Here is a link entitled "Safe Gift Card Buying on eBay.
8/4/1995
Yes
Yes
        
Active
5/11/2010
EmptyCard.com Has a directory of places you can donate your gift card to.
2/3/2005
Yes
Yes
        
Inactive
5/11/2010
Gas Card Auctions This one is a head scratcher. They auction VISA gift cards that say "gas card" on them. I would presume these could be used anywhere. The site seems to imply that you can purchase a gift card for pennies on the dollar. Their have a really funky lowest unique bid auction process
7/31/2006
Yes
No
"down for maintenance"
5/11/2010
Giftah Gift card auctions. As of this writing (4/30/10) they have only 12 cards listed.
10/28/2008
No
Yes
5-20%
55-75%
~100
few
Active
5/11/2010
GiftCards Again GiftCard Buy Back Buy and sell gift cards. They will buy them directly from you (no need to auction) for about 75% of face value. They list about 75 issuers whose cards they will buy. They also have a companion site GiftCardDonor.com that you can use to donate your cards to a charity. The charity gets 75% of the value of the gift cards. This service appears identically under two different brands and URL's - giftcardsagain.com and giftcardbuyback.com.
6/14/04
6/14/04
No
Yes
~10%
70-83%
over 100
~20 active
Deadpool
5/19/2010
GiftCardBin GiftCardBin is one of the secondary marketplaces that has continued to evolve and grow since we first spotted it and now has many more cards for sale. Mail-in is required for non-electronic gift cards (i.e. gift cards that were not issued electronically). About 1/3 of the 200+ card issuers they support are available for electronic delivery, which means you can buy it and use it while at a retailer for instant savings. Rather unique is their counter-offer feature; if you aren't happy with their offer, you can send them a "name your own price" counter offer.
9/8/2009
No
Yes
11-17%
62-77%
over 200
many
Active
5/16/2011
GiftCardCash.net They buy gift cards and charge 30% of face value for open-loop (Visa, etc.) and 37% of closed-loop (Target, etc.). Transactions are done by mail and on a case-by-case basis. Not a plug and play service.
11/23/2007
Yes
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
GiftCardCity This site is a little different than other gift card sites in that you trade your card for another card (from a different retailer) of the same value. All trades are done with the site and not other customers/users. This site opened for business 10/1/08
6/21/2003
No
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
giftcardconverter.co.uk You can buy, sell, trade, or donate gift cards to charity. Cards donated to charity do not incur commissions, something we have yet to see from similar US based sites that provide the ability to donate to charities. As with most new sites, very few cards listed.
10/23/2009
No
Yes
5-20%
varies, plus 10% commission
login required
few
Active
5/11/2010
GiftCardCove.com Kind of like a Craigslist for gift cards, with a moderate amount of listings. Doesn't currently have listings for open-loop cards. Now also has inappropriate & unrelated listings
1/12/2007
No
Yes
unknown
unknown
unknown
unknown
Inactive
5/11/2010
GiftCardGenie Auction site for gift cards. THIS SITE HAS NO LISTINGS and appears dormant.
3/17/2005
No
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
GiftCardRescue

Sell cards to them for cash or exchange for different gift cards. Transactions completed by mail. They offer 5% more when you sell if you take your money in an Amazon.com gift card. They provide bankruptcy protection for gift cards purchased from their site. They are also tied to GiftCardBlogger.com, which tracks gift card related news and specials, and it is a reasonable place to go to keep track of retailer bankruptcies and such.

This is one of the few sites that buys back open-loop cards, including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express!
2/4/2007
Yes
Yes

7-30%
70-90%

~350

(varies by season)
many
Active
7/12/2010
Gift Card Trading Post Buys and sells gift cards. Buys gift cards for 65-83% of face value; sells gift cards for a 10-20% discount (as per their website).
12/8/2008
No
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
GiftCardTrader.com A trading post for gift cards. You list your card and then people can make offers on it. About 25 cards listed (1/13/09)
6/1/2008
Unsure
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
theGiftCardTrader.com Strangely similar name to the one just above. This is a trade only site. You can search the listings to see what people want your gift card and if you want any of the cards they have, you can trade. Trades cost each party a $1.99 flat fee. It is unclear what provisions exist if you don't have the exact value of the gift card you want to trade for.
1/1/2004
No
Yes
unknown
unknown
unknown
unknown
Active
5/19/10
giftcardout.com This site will give you cash for your gift card. Each transaction is a one-off and transactions are completed by mail. Website claims they have been in business two years but domain was registered just one year ago (as of 12/13/08).
12/26/2007
No
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/10
giftcardgranny.com

Gift Card Granny was the first gift car aggregator, which allows you to search and compare listings from gift card secondary markets like Plastic Jungle, ABC Gift Cards, Cardpool, and others. You can also compare resale prices from these sites when you want to sell a gift card. The resale comparison page lists all cards and marketplaces for easy quick reference unlike some other sites where you must select and compare one card at a time.

They have a convenient balance check listing that lists 800 numbers and websites for checking the balance of hundreds of gift card issuers.

Their alert tool makes it easy to get alerted when discounted gift cards are available from one of the many secondary marektplaces they cover.
8/31/2009
No
Yes
(through other sites)
 (through other sites) > 600 > 10,000
Active
5/18/11
GiftCardSwap.ca A pure swap sit, Canada centric. Transactions are rather cumbersome as done by mail and you must include a self-addressed & stamped envelope. Site appears to have few cards to swap for.
10/31/2008
No
Yes
swap
swap -10% fee
any
few
Active
5/11/2010
GiftCardSwapping.com Buy and sell gift cards. They will buy cards directly from you (no auction) for from 60% to 75% of face value. Transactions done by mail payment by check.
1/3/2005
Yes
Yes
swap, 0-15%
swap or 60-75%
~50
some
Active
5/11/2010
GiftCardWish.com Buy, sell, trade gift cards with others. THIS SITE HAS NO LISTINGS.
2/1/2006
Unsure
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
LeverageCard.com Buy/trade gift cards. They also offer to pay interest on gift cards you register with them and offer gift card bankruptcy protection for cards registered with their site.
5/3/2005
No
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
Mercardi

This site buys and sells gift cards directly. You deal only with them (no trading or auctions from 3rd parties).
This site has closed as of August 2010 and is referring people to Plastic Jungle.
6/9/2009
No
Yes
3-15%
~70%
>200
some
Active

8/22/2010
MoneyTonic Buy & sell gift cards. VERY FEW CARDS LISTED FOR SALE. Sell transactions done by mail. Money deposited into bank account or credit towards purchase of other gift cards. Gift cards sold must have minimum $25 value on them.
9/20/2006
No
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
monstergiftcard.com Buy, sell, and trade gift cards. Works just like other sites of this type.
5/14/2007
No
Yes
8-15%
not apparent
~40
many
Active
5/11/2010
ok BONGO Buy & sell gift cards. Selling is a little confusing and it isn't clear if they can buy your card without you having to mail it in or not.
1/15/2006
Unsure
Yes
5-10% off
login required
~12 currently listed, but login required to see full list
few
Active
5/11/2010
plastic jungle Plastic Jungle claims to be the "Web's leading gift card exchange" and they just might be. They are certainly the most well funded. The amount of cards they have listed for sale can vary greatly. They will buy your card directly for cash, or, for a slightly better return, you can swap it for an Amazon.com gift card. They pay up to 92% of face value or 96% if you swap it for an Amazon.com gift card. Transactions are completed by mail and they offer free printable mailing labels, a notable feature. Payment is by check or Amazon.com gift card with the additional options of Facebook credits or Offerpal Gamepoints.
3/3/2005
No
Yes
up to 30%
up to 92%
over 400
tons
Active
 8/2/2010
RackUp Offers gift cards in quick 60-second auctions. They claim the average discount is about 18%. (The creation date is probably not accurate for this site as the name was probably held by domain squatters for some time.) See our post on this site.
5/29/2003
No
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
Real Cash 4 Gift Cards Each transaction appears to be a one-off. You email them for a quote.
2/25/2008
No
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
Recarded.com What is somewhat unique about this buy/sell/trade/donate gift card secondary marketplace is that they do not require you to mail in your card. All transactions are done directly with the company, not with other buyers/sellers. Payment is by check or PayPal.
6/6/2007
No
Yes
up to 25%
60-81%
23
Few
Active
8/27/2010
sellgasgiftcards.com A very low tech site where you email them the information on your gift card and they make you an offer.
12/28/2007
No
Yes
        
Deadpool
5/11/2010
The Island of Misfit Gift Cards Like Win My Gift Cards, this site simply lists gift card auctions on eBay. Do people really think they are going to make money off a site like this? And what is with the name? Recently renamed to auction-gift-cards.com
Domain registration has lapsed as of 8/12/10.
12/27/2007
No
Yes
many
Deadpool
8/27/2010
Star Gift Card Exchange Buy, sell, trade gift cards. They will buy card directly from you for 65%-75% of face value from select merchants (about 75 listed) with minimum $25 face value and unused cards only. Transactions completed by mail. Relatively few cards are currently (10/5/08) listed for sale.
1/4/2007
No
Yes
16-20%
must submit request
must submit request
some
Active
5/11/2010
swapagift.com Buy, sell, trade, auction gift cards. Lots of listings and buyers/sellers. They will buy your card (through mail, payment by check) for 60%-70% of face value. Additionally, they list partner locations (685 at last count) where you can take your card to get cash instantly. Very nice! They are now owned by giftcards.com.
3/31/2003
Yes
Yes
up to 25%
60-70%
over 200
many
Active
5/18/2010
Unused Gift Cards Gift card auctions (i.e. you can only buy, not sell).
3/8/2005
No
Yes
0-20%
    
few
Active
5/11/2010
UpYourCard.com You register your card then mail it to them. Sellers get full value for their cards; buyers pay a 6.5% commission on purchases. This makes no sense to me as buyers will be paying more than the value on the card.
7/17/2009
No
Yes
not apparent
not apparent
not apparent
few
Active
5/11/2010
Win My Gift Cards! This site is pretty worthless as all it does is list ebay auctions and serve up advertising. Very few listed auctions at that. It doesn't actually sell the cards directly.
8/8/2008
No
Yes
      
few
Active
5/11/2010