eBay often sells multiple discounted gift cards. If you can stack them with bonus eBay ebucks and elevated cashback from shopping portals, the savings get even better. Of course, if you do not need a particular gift card, you can also buy it at a discount and resell it for a small profit. This post summarizes the current eBay gift card deals.
【10/12 Update】 Buying gift cards with eBay gift cards is dead
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Current Deals
- Summary of all gift card deals (including multiple discounted gas cards at 8% off, Bestbuy 10% off, gap 15% off,)
- GivingAssitant offers 1.2% cashback on eBay. See: eBay portal comparison
What Makes a Good Deal
For merchant gift cards on eBay to qualify as a good deal, the final discount needs to be above 15%. The discount usually comes from the following factors:
- Bonus eBay bucks (base 2%, up to 10%)
- Discounted merchant gift cards on eBay (5%-20% off)
- Promotion codes on eBay (15%-20% off)
- High cashback rates for eBay at shopping portals (1%-2.5% cashback)
- A high resale value for the merchant gift card you buy (between 0.95-0.85)
The first two are usually limited-time deals and expire in two days or a week, but they also offer the biggest discounts. The third can also create substantial savings. This post mainly updates those first three items. Of course, if any of the other items offer unusually large discounts, they will also be updated in their respective sections.
Bonus eBay bucks (10% back)
You can no longer earn eBay Bucks when buying gift cards.
Discounted merchant gift cards on eBay
- If bonus bucks are available, you can even come out ahead by buying gas cards and reselling them
Notes
Do not try to use multiple accounts to increase your limit; it can easily get you shut down. Gas cards can be resold at a profit, but for other gift cards, using them yourself is usually the better value. Right now, PayPal digital eGC sales are limited to 4 cards every 10 days.
Promotion codes on eBay (none at the moment)
Shopping portals related to eBay
- 【1.2% cashback】 Giving Assistant sign-up link (get a $5 sign-up bonus); Giving Assistant guide (fastest payout)
- 【0.9% cashback】 TopCashback sign-up link; TopCashback guide (most accurate eBay tracking)
- Ebates no longer offers cashback on eBay gift cards, and various airline portals and Splender have also removed eBay cashback
Selling gift cards bought on eBay
Gas cards are a great liquidation option because they usually sell at strong rates on secondary gift card sites. Since these gas cards are physical cards, you have to mail them in if you want to sell them, so I recommend selling to cardpool. That is because cardpool provides free USPS shipping, while most other sites require you to pay postage yourself. If you do not have a cardpool account, you can sign up below:
- cardpool sign-up link (new users can get $5 to use toward future gift card purchases)
- Cardpool gift card buying and selling guide
【January 2016 data】 Cardpool buy rates for various gas cards were as follows:
Do not forget that you can also go through a shopping portal when selling gift cards:
- Giving Assistant sign-up link ($5 sign-up bonus, 4% cashback on selling cards to cardpool)
- Giving Assistant guide
Step-by-step deal strategy
- Check whether there are bonus bucks, and activate them if available (see section 2)
- Check whether any merchant gift cards you are interested in are on sale, and note them down if so (see section 3)
- Check which portal offers the highest eBay cashback, or the best sign-up bonus (see section 5)
- Click through to eBay from that portal, search for the gift card you want to buy, and pay with the discounted eBay gift cards you bought earlier
- If you need the gift card, you are done.
- If you do not need it, you can resell it through cardpool (see section 6)
Examples
Exxon gas card deal example:
- Discounted eBay gift cards / credit card (+5%-20%)
- Exxon gas card $100 for $90 (+10%)
- eBay 5x bucks (+10%) — not available every time; minimum 2%
- splender cashback (+2%)
- Sell on cardpool (-13%), portal cashback (+4%), free shipping (-0%)
- Profit of 18%-33%
Sears gift card example (also applies to Staples gift cards)
- Discounted eBay gift cards / credit card (+5%-20%)
- sears $100 for $85 (+15%)
- eBay 4x bucks (+8%) — not available every time; minimum 2%
- splender cashback (+2%)
- Sell for $84 (-16%)
- Profit of 14%-29%
10. Summary
This post simply lists various limited-time deals. For eBay-specific features and detailed explanations, see:
For some previously analyzed deals in more detail, see: