Part 1 of my Free Gift Card Guide
Many retail stores offer customers a store credit represented by a plastic gift card that can be used as cash to purchase any product available in the store. For years, store credits for gifts or returns were issued in the form of an official paper certificate or wallet sized paper card signed by the store manager. In more recent years, the swipeable plastic gift card has become the more popular medium for which store credits are distributed. The plastic gift card allows companies to keep track of usage via the card’s magnetic tape in the same way that credit cards do. Once a gift card’s credit amount is spent, the card can be either disposed of or recharged.
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Part 2 of my Free Gift Card Guide
Free gift cards differ from regular gift cards in one simple and very obvious way: they don’t cost anything. Some stores give free gift cards to customers as part a special offer or promotion they are advertising. For example, Bed, Bath and Beyond has offered a free gift card in the amount of $50 with certain product purchases over $250. One major car company reportedly gave vouchers for free $75 gift cards when web site visitors requested a brochure for one of their cars and took a test drive. OfficeMax has given gift cards to customers for items replaced under their extended warranties.
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Part 3 of my Free Gift Card Guide
Most free gift card offers are facilitated by affiliate advertising networks. Members of these networks are either publishers or merchants. The merchant (affiliate advertiser) designs a banner ad, text copy or other “creative” advertisements for publishers to deploy on their web sites.
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Part 4 of my Free Gift Card Guide
Some free sites commonly offer free gift cards and free gift certificates to visitors via ads as described above. Free sites or free stuff sites are good at finding and organizing free gift card offers as well as a host of other free offers. One such site is aplusfreestuff.com, a free stuff site described as offering the “highest quality free stuff, samples, contests and coupons.” One pleasantly unique aspect of the A+ Free Stuff site is that there are no pop-ups or banners to coerce visitors, only text links.
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Part 5 of my Free Gift Card Guide
Doing a little research before beginning an online free gift card sign up process can save the free gift card seeker a great deal of time and frustration. If possible, try to determine the criteria for obtaining the free gift card beforehand. Some free gift card offers, especially the higher dollar amount ones can sound appealing on the surface. It’s quite easy to get excited about the possibility of getting a free gift card from your favorite store. Advertisers know this. But, it can be very disappointing to invest time in completing an online free gift card sign up only to discover that the offers are not desireable or the demands are too high. Read the free gift card offer terms. If the free gift card web site doesn’t answer your questions, consider contacting them to get answers via their email address or contact/help form. Apply for free gift cards from stores that you are familiar with. Finally, follow through and hold the free gift card offerer–not the merchant–accountable for delivering what they promised.
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