National Use Your Gift Card Day Date in the current year: January 20, 2024

A gift card is a prepaid stored-value money card that can be used for purchases within a particular business. Gift cards are a very popular and desirable gift, nearly a third of all people who receive them over the holidays spend their gift cards months after the holiday season, if they remember to spend them at all. Some people don’t spend their gift cards right away because they wait for sales and promotions, while others simply get busy and lose track of the gift cards they receive. As a result, about 3% of the gift cards never get redeemed, and billions of dollars are lost in forgotten gift cards every year.

National Use Your Gift Card Day was launched in 2020 by the public relations firm Tilson PR to remind consumers to spend their unused gift cards and help businesses boost their sales and increase customer loyalty. Retailers and restaurants across the nation have joined the initiative and offer their customers special incentives to use their gift cards on National Use Your Gift Card Day: small presents, discounts, special deals, etc.

The best way to celebrate the holiday is to take stock of the gift cards you received over the holidays and put them to good use. You can do it in just three steps:

1. Locate all your unspent gift cards. Look in every pocket of every wallet and purse you own, in all your drawers, in the glove compartment of your car, in the gift bags and boxes that you haven’t thrown out, etc.
2. Get the cards organized and check out providers’ websites for special deals that will help you maximize your gift cards.
3. Make a plan to use them all. We suggest that you overspend the amount of each gift card just a little bit to avoid small balances being left, so that you can hand the card over to the provider for recycling.

Every now and then we receive gift cards we don’t particularly need. There are several ways to make sure they don’t get wasted. For example, you can use such gift cards to purchase a gift for someone else – someone who will appreciate it. You can also host a gift card swap party or even sell your gift cards for cash if you find someone interested.

However, we suggest that you celebrate National Use Your Gift Card Day by using the gift cards you don’t need for good. For example, you can donate your unused gift cards to a local charity that may find a better use for them, use them to purchase items that a non-profit organization may need (for example, school supplies for a public school), give gift cards to first responders to recognize their efforts, use a grocery store or restaurant gift card to provide meals to the less privileged, etc.

And don’t forget to remind others to spend their unused gift cards by posting about the holiday on social media with the hashtags #NationalUseYourGiftCardDay and #UseYourGiftCardDay.