About CardCash

CardCash is a website where you can buy secondhand gift cards or sell unwanted ones. I’ve used it since 2016, and it’s been pretty reliable—I’ve never had a payment delayed. I recently sold a few more gift cards, and the process went smoothly; the money arrived within a few days. Here’s an overview.

Sign-Up Bonus

Sign up for CardCash through the referral link to get a $5 coupon. You can use it toward a $25 gift card, bringing the price down to $20.

Selling Gift Cards

I mainly use this site to sell gift cards I don’t need. For example, the recent AMEX Platinum refresh added a Lululemon benefit that you can use to buy a gift card. I sold all of mine here, so let’s use that as an example.

  • To sell a $150 Lululemon gift card, enter the gift card name and amount to get a quote. CardCash will tell you how much you can sell it for; the current rate is 81.5%.
  • You can choose to receive payment on a prepaid Mastercard, which pays a little more. It appears to be an electronic card number that you can use online. Or, like me, you can choose to receive cash directly. There are three payout methods. I used a bank account to receive payment via ACH; you can also use PayPal. I strongly recommend against receiving a check by mail: it’s slow, and the check could get lost.
  • Once you’ve chosen a payout method, enter the card number and PIN. You can scratch them off the physical card and enter them here.
  • To confirm the order, you need to enter a credit card. It’s only used to verify your identity, and you won’t actually be charged.
  • Once you’ve filled everything out, you can submit the order. I submitted mine on October 4, and they told me the next day that they had accepted my gift card.
  • The ACH payment arrived on October 7, so the process was pretty efficient.

I sold three more gift cards after that, and they were all processed quickly, too. The only downside, in my opinion, is that the buyback rates aren’t especially high. Here are the payout rates for gift cards we commonly use; they can fluctuate by 3%-5% with the market.

  • Lululemon: 81%-83%
  • Saks: 77%-80%
  • Office Depot: 74%-76%

If convenience is your priority and you don’t want to trade gift cards with friends or in group chats, selling directly to CardCash is easier. One tip: if you find a discounted gift card that you can still sell to them at a profit, go ahead and buy it to meet your credit card’s spending requirement!

Buying Gift Cards

You can also buy gift cards on CardCash, but the discounts aren’t as big. So I recommend using the $5 coupon from the sign-up offer to buy a $25 gift card you can use.

For example, you could buy a Target gift card. I recommend buying one for a round amount, since it’s more likely to look unused, and spending it as soon as possible.

CardCash offers a 45-day refund guarantee, though, so if there’s a problem, contact them for a refund as soon as possible.

Summary

If you’ve earned various statement credits but don’t want to spend time selling the gift cards yourself—and can’t use them right away—you can sell them to CardCash and turn them into cash. The cash prices also give you an idea of the minimum value of those benefits. For example, the annual $300 Lululemon benefit on the AMEX Platinum card is worth at least $240. The $100 Saks benefit is worth at least $75.

Sign-Up Link

Sign up for CardCash through the referral link to get a $5 coupon. You can use it toward a $25 gift card, bringing the price down to $20.