Give a Gift Card for Christmas & Minimize Dollars Spent During the Holidays!

It is almost that time of year again...the holidays. Many of you are hosting a party or going to one. Then there are the personal family get togethers; all of which can involve swaping presents.

I have found gift cards to be the best way to maximize the dollars spent towards a gift. The reason is that the best sales happen after Christmas. There is nothing like getting a gift card to use at my favorite store because it enables me to buy what I want and usually more of it due to a clearance or post holiday sale. For the person that is hard to buy for this may be your best option.

Most individuals purchase a specific retail merchant or a bank gift card bought directly from a retail merchant or bank. I am proposing that you minimize dollars spent during the holidays by utilizing your personal or business credit card reward program; if you use your personal or business credit card for expenditures year round especially on major expenditures such as travel, it is possible that you may have been accumulating points related to a reward program. You have to be enrolled in a program at the time of purchase, and many credit cards in existence today have a reward program attached to it so upon acceptance of the card you could have accepted or declined a program. Call your credit card company or take a look at your monthly statement and see what type of reward program you have (not all can be transacted into gift cards) if any. If you are in the right type of program is there enough accumulated points to acquire a gift card to use during the holidays for purchasing party items or to give as a present for a family member, friend, acquaintance, or colleague. This does require foresight because you need to allow time to make the request and have one or more mailed to you especially if the gift card is coming from a third party vendor.