Holiday Greetings! With gift cards being the top gift this holiday season, we’re ramping up for a reminder day to redeem those unused gift cards – National Use Your Gift Card Day on January 16, 2021! So many people have them – many forgotten – and we’re a hybrid between a PSA for reminding people to use their gift cards and a shopping holiday for merchants to give consumers another reason to use gift cards, too!
According to a survey conducted in November by the National Retail Federation (NRF), Americans were expected to spend $27.5 billion on gift cards during the holiday season. With $1 billion in gift cards going unspent each year, often forgotten in wallets, purses or desk drawers, National Use Your Gift Card Day offers a solution to this expensive problem. Like Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, and others, National Use Your Gift Card Day benefits shoppers and merchants.
Popular brands that have already signed on to participate in this year’s National Use Your Gift Card Day include:
- Applebee’s
- Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s
- Bolay
- Chico’s
- Chipotle
- Jon Smith Subs
- Macy’s
- PetSmart
- rue21
- Saks Fifth Avenue
- Smashburger
- Soma
- The Great Greek
- Topgolf
- White House Black Market
“More than ever before, gift cards help shoppers buy items they want and need online as well as in-store,” said Tracy Tilson, founder of UseYourGiftCard.com™. “In addition to reminding consumers to use their gift cards, now more than ever we want to encourage them to use their unused gift cards for good.”
This year we have a new partner on National Use Your Gift Card Day where you can even donate leftover balances on gift cards with Gift Card Bank who accepts all kinds of gift cards, from major retailers and brands to local restaurants and with their national distribution network, they will be able to find someone deserving who would be deeply appreciative to receive the support. In a recent survey conducted by Black Hawk Network, 31% of respondents indicated that they were “interested in using gift cards and egifts for charity or kindness during this crisis, such as contributing to a gift card for a person or family in need.”
