Top Tips for Using Your Gift Cards

It seems to me that most of the newer members of DealDash seem to go for the low value gift cards. That’s a smart strategy, because when you’re bidding on a $10 gift card, $10 isn’t too much money to have to part with in case you lose and the buy it now and get all of your bids back is also very affordable. Here are some of my top tips for using the gift cards that you win or BIN (Buy it Now) on DealDash.

1. My first top tips is don’t be afraid to get in there and bid against people, that you see from their profile, who have been on DealDash for years. In my experience, they are not really looking to get into a bidding war with you on these small value gift cards. Most of the time, it seems to me that they have just set their bid buddies for 15 or 20 bids just to see if everyone else will give up after just a few bids then they will get an easy win to fill one of their 6 under $200 weekly win spaces.

2. My second top tip is to stack your gift cards. Pick a certain type of gift card, for instance, one of my first gift card wins was a Bass Pro Shop card. Let’s face it, there isn’t a lot of things that you can buy at Bass Pro Shops for just $10 unless you are going for snacks or socks. So what I did was I started bidding on multiple small value Bass Pro Shop cards and eventually I had enough cards that I was able to order a new North Face hoodie.

3. Top tip number three is to bid on gift cards that you can redeem online. A lot of the gift cards that you can win or bin on DealDash can be redeemed online. For example, Bass Pro Shop, The Children’s Place, Bed Bath and Beyond, and of course Amazon can all be redeemed online, therefore saving you a trip to the store and gas money to get there.

4. Stack your gift cards with store coupon codes. For example, I won a $100 Children’s Place gift card a couple of months ago. $100 will get you MANY outfits for your kids at Children’s Place, but if you stack your gift card with extra coupons from the store you can get almost twice the value of your gift card. I had a code for 40 percent off and free shipping that they had sent me in my email, which I used in conjunction with my DealDash gift card and was able to maximize my profits. Almost all stores that have a website that you can order from also have a newsletter that you can sign up through email and they will occasionally send you coupon codes to use on their websites.

5. This may sound silly, but make sure that you actually — USE your gift cards! When I first started playing penny auctions I was signed up to a bunch of different sites, and I had all sorts of gift cards — Too many! I just kept accumulating them with no clear plan on how I was going to use them. I know for a fact that I lost a couple in the shuffle, switching them from one purse to another. I am still mourning that $25 Subway gift card that went missing. Use and enjoy your cards, fellow DealDashers, life is too short to hang on to them and just look at them.

By Dawn Xu