How to Use a Gift Card for In-Store Purchases

Gift cards offer a convenient and flexible payment method for in-store purchases, acting much like a prepaid debit card. Understanding the proper steps to use them ensures a seamless transaction experience at retail locations.

Preparing Your Gift Card

Before heading to a store, verify the gift card’s balance to prevent issues at checkout. Most gift card issuers provide a website or a toll-free number on the back of the card for balance inquiries. Some retailers also allow in-store balance checks by a cashier.

Understand the gift card’s terms and conditions, including potential fees or expiration dates. Federal law mandates that gift cards cannot expire in less than five years from their activation date, and generally limits inactivity fees unless there’s been no activity for at least a year.

Physical gift cards may require activation before their first use, which can often be done online, by phone, or by the cashier at the time of purchase. For cards with a Personal Identification Number (PIN), this is typically found under a scratch-off panel on the back of the card.

Redeeming Your Gift Card at Checkout

Inform the cashier you are paying with a gift card before the transaction begins. The cashier will prompt you to present the card.

For most physical gift cards, this involves swiping the card through a payment terminal, similar to a debit or credit card. Some terminals may allow for scanning a barcode if present on the card or manual entry of the card number.

If your gift card has a PIN, you will typically be prompted to enter it on the PIN pad. For Visa or other network-branded gift cards, you often have the option to process it as a “credit” transaction, which may not require a PIN, or as a “debit” transaction, which will necessitate PIN entry.

Common Situations and Solutions

If the purchase amount exceeds the gift card’s balance, most retailers allow you to use the gift card for its full value and then pay the remaining balance with another form of payment, such as cash or a debit/credit card. If the purchase is less than the gift card’s balance, the remaining funds will typically stay on the card for future use, provided the card is still valid.

In cases where a card does not read at the point of sale, issues can include non-activation, an incorrect transaction type being run by the cashier, or a discrepancy in the card’s registered information. If the barcode is unreadable, asking the cashier for manual entry of the gift card number can resolve the issue.

If problems persist, contacting the gift card issuer’s customer service, often found on the back of the card, is the recommended next step.