About CardCash

CardCash is a website where you can buy secondhand gift cards or sell unused gift cards. I’ve used this site since 2016, and it’s been pretty reliable with no payment delays. I recently sold a few more gift cards, and everything went very smoothly—the money hit my account a few days later. Here’s an introduction.

Sign-Up and Bonus

If you register for CardCash through a referral link, you can get a $5 coupon bonus. You can use it on a $25 gift card, so after applying it, you only pay $20.

Selling Gift Cards

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

  • For example, if you want to sell a $150 Lululemon gift card, just enter the gift card name and amount to get a quote. It will tell you how much you can sell it for; the current rate is 81.5%.
  • You can choose to receive payment by prepaid Mastercard, which pays a little more. It should be an electronic card number that you can use online. Or, like I did, you can choose to get cash directly. There are three payout methods here. I used bank account deposit via ACH; you can also use PayPal. I strongly do not recommend mailed checks: they’re slow, and they can get lost in the mail.
  • Once you’ve chosen a method, you can start entering the card number and PIN. Just scratch the physical card and fill it in.
  • 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.
  • After that, you can submit it. I submitted mine on October 4, and one day later they told me they had accepted my gift card.
  • Then the ACH payment arrived on October 7, so the process was pretty efficient.

I sold three more orders after that, and they all went through quickly as well. Of course, I think their only downside is that the buyback rate isn’t especially high. The payout rates for the gift cards we use most often are below, and they can fluctuate by 3%–5% depending on the market.

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

If you want convenience and don’t want to trade gift cards with friends or in group chats, selling directly to them is pretty hassle-free. A special reminder: if you find that a discounted gift card still leaves you room to profit when you sell it to them, then go ahead and buy it and use it to meet your card spending requirements!

Buying Gift Cards

They also support buying gift cards, but the discounts aren’t as good. So I’d recommend just using the initial $5 coupon and buying a $25 gift card you can actually use.

For example, you could buy a Target gift card. I’d suggest buying a round amount, since it looks more like an unused gift card, and using it as soon as possible.

They also have a 45-day money-back guarantee, so if there’s any problem, contact them for a refund as soon as possible.

Summary

If you’ve used various rebates and don’t want to spend time selling them to other people yourself, and you also can’t use them right away, you can just sell everything to CardCash and turn it into cash. The cash price here also gives you a sense of the minimum value of those rebates. For example, the AMEX Platinum card’s annual $300 Lululemon rebate is worth at least $240. A $100 Saks rebate is worth at least about $75.

Referral Link

If you register for CardCash through a referral link, you can get a $5 coupon bonus. You can use it on a $25 gift card, so after applying it, you only pay $20.