The following article was originally posted on GiftCardGirlFriend.com – Your Guide to Guilt-Free Gift Carding.  We’re big fans of this site and loved this article so much we asked the author if we could share it with all of our readers as well. Thanks Shelley!

With three kids going back to school (and soccer and football and scouts, etc.), my budget is tapped. We’re reusing last year’s backpacks and lunch boxes to save money, but the kids still needed a few things. So I combined gift cards and coupons to stretch the dollars a bit further. Here’s what I did:

Work It:

1. Scoured the newspaper and mailers for high discount coupons.
2. Bought discount gift cards to go along with the best coupons.

Big Savings:

For example, I received coupon for $10 off a $25 purchase at JC Penney. Then I bought a $25 JC Penney Gift Card for $21.50 at Plastic Jungle.

At JC Penney, Ally found two pairs of skinny jeans for a total of $25.99 plus a must-have, embellished top on the clearance rack for $10. The bill came to $35.99 plus tax. With our coupon and gift card, however, we paid almost nothing at the register. By combining discounts, I paid $21.5o to Plastic Jungle for essentially $35.99 in merchandise at JC Penney. That’s 40% in savings.

Going Forward:

Yes, it takes a little work and forethought. Yes, a good coupon can make all the difference. But there are stores like JC Penney, Kohls, Macy’s, and Old Navy that routinely send out special promotions. If you buy discount gift cards in advance and match ‘em up with the coupons as they arrive, you can save a lot of money.

Plan Ahead for the Holidays:

With the holidays coming up, combining gift cards with store sales and coupons could be the relief your budget is waiting for.

Shelley loves to receive gift cards. As a mom on a fairly tight budget, she rarely has money for self-indulgences like pedicures, spa treatments, and clothes not picked from the clearance rack. But if somebody gives her a gift card for such pampering, she get to shop and enjoy these experiences guilt-free. Even buying more practical items without spending my own money is a welcome treat.

A few weeks back if you remember, The Children’s Place released their latest coupons including Save 30% when you spend $60…so quickly you could have easily turned the 30% Off Savings into 40% Off Savings if you had purchased the card above from Plastic Jungle. You could turn that into more savings thru shopping their sales and clearance and using their Rewards Program Perks Points*

The post below is a follow up post from our friend Peter Camenzind at giftcardadvocate.org. We hope you find his insights helpful. In case you missed it, read what Peter had to say about using open-loop gift cards online. Be sure to leave your comments and questions below. Thanks again Peter!

Additionally, please note, Plastic Jungle does not buy or sell open-loop gift cards since they fall under a different set of rules and business regulations.  Stay tuned for more thoughts on this topic from our President, Bruce Bower.

Open-loop (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover) gift cards can be very difficult to use successfully.  In my last post, I discussed how some of their limitations and how to best use them for online purchases.  In this post, I’ll discuss how to best use them for in-person purchases at retail establishment.

If you have a particular retailer in mind to use a gift card at, whether for yourself or someone else, closed-loop gift cards (Target, Wal-Mart) might be a better choice as virtually none of the open-loop gift card issues (like fees and verification) exist for closed-loop cards, and they are often available at a discount.

In-person purchases

Using these cards in-person can be tricky in many situations.  First, be aware that purchases at restaurants and gas stations are treated differently than most other purchases.

When you want to buy gas at the pump at a gas station, the gas station will automatically put a $50 or $75 hold on your card before you pump gas.  If your card does not have enough for the hold on it, you are out of luck, and won’t be able to use the card at the pump.  You may be able to present the card to the cashier, explain the situation, and pump gas as you would with a cash purchase.  However, be prepared to  cover the purchase with cash if it doesn’t work, especially if you tried it at the pump first, because of authorization holds as we explained in part 1 of this series.

You may also run into problems using gift cards that have not been registered at gas stations, and specifically at the pump, because the majority of gas stations now require you enter your billing zip code.  If you plan to use your gift card at a gas station, and have considered the $50/$75 hold issue, register your card first and use the zip code of the address you registered.

When you want to pay for a meal at a restaurant, most restaurants point-of-sale (POS) systems will automatically place a hold on the amount of your bill, plus an additional 20% to make sure you have enough available credit (or funds in the case of debit cards) for a tip.  If you want to pay for a $50 meal with a $50 gift card, and pay the tip in cash, you are out of luck as the card will be rejected as the system will attempt to authorize it for $60.  You could always ask the server to put $35 of a larger bill on a $50 gift card and then fill in the rest as part of the tip.

Other than gas stations and restaurants, most other merchants should have few problems with open-loop gift cards as long as you are aware of your balance, are sure there are no holds on your funds (from failed purchase attempts that have not cleared) and are not trying to purchase using a split-tender transaction, a special kind of gift card problem.

When you use a closed-loop gift card (like Target), almost all retailers POS systems are capable of (a) checking the balance on the card, and (b) applying the remaining balance on the card to your purchase and then applying another type of payment to the remainder.  This is called a split-tender transaction.

However, with open-loop gift cards, merchants are not able to check your remaining balance (except in a few rare cases) and most cashiers have not been properly trained in split-tender transactions, if the POS system is even capable of doing one.  That is the main reason that open-loop gift cards are so frustrating, because getting the last few bucks off of the card is very difficult.  I have yet to find a retailer, online or brick-and-mortar that says they support split-tender transactions.

MasterCard and Discover have recently introduced new merchant requirements that will solve many of these problem, like holds, balance checking, and split-tender transactions, but it will be a year or more before those fully take effect.

About the author:

Peter Camenzind is small-business owner, tech entrepreneur, and consumer advocate.  He created the site giftcardadvocate.org to help provide consumers with information on how to get the most out of their gift cards.

The following post is from our friend Peter Camenzind at giftcardadvocate.org. We really appreciate the time Peter has taken to share his expertise with our community, and we hope you find his insights helpful!

Please note, Plastic Jungle does not buy or sell open-loop gift cards since they fall under a different set of rules and business regulations.  Stay tuned for more thoughts on this topic from our President, Bruce Bower.

Open-loop (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover) gift cards, while not tied to a particular merchant, can be very difficult to use successfully.  In this post, I’ll discuss how to best use them for online purchases.  In my next post, I’ll cover simple rules for using them at a merchant in-person.

If you have a particular retailer in mind to use a gift card at, whether for yourself or someone else, closed-loop gift cards (Target, Wal-Mart) might be a better choice as virtually none of the open-loop gift card issues (like fees and verification) exist for closed-loop cards, and they are often available at a discount.

Online purchases

These cards in most ways look electronically just like credit cards, and most people want and expect them to behave just like credit cards.

When you try to use a card for an online purchases, whether it is a credit card or an open-loop gift card, you will be asked to enter the billing address for the card, which is used for the address verification system (AVS) where the numbers associated with the address you give (house number on street and zip code) are compared with what is on file for the card.

Some gift cards simply ignore AVS, which means that the issuing bank sends the merchant an AVS code that says AVS is not being used.  Here is where the trouble starts.  Most merchants will see this as an address verification pass, but some will see it as a fail, and the transaction will be declined.

Some gift cards do not ignore AVS, which means that until you go to the website listed on the card and register it to an address, the AVS check will always come back as a fail.  There is no way to tell what cards behave in which ways, and in some cases cards issued by the same bank that look exactly the same will behave differently in this respect.

So you just tried to use your card which you had not registered, and it failed because the address verification failed.  Guess what?  Now your card has a hold on it for the amount you tried to purchase.  These holds will typically last for more than a week and up to three weeks!

If you plan to use a card online, unless you know that it is the type that does not use address verification, always register your card to the address you plan to have stuff shipped to, before you use it.  It may also help to test the card out with a small purchase (so it doesn’t put your entire card value on hold) before you make a larger purchase.

MasterCard and Discover have recently introduced new merchant requirements that will at least help by significantly reducing the length of time your funds are on hold after a failed transaction, but it will be a year or more before those fully take effect.

In my next post, I’ll discuss using open-loop cards in-person.

About the author:

Peter Camenzind is a small-business owner, tech entrepreneur, and consumer advocate.  He created the site giftcardadvocate.org to help provide consumers with information on how to get the most out of their gift cards.

The following article was originally posted on ShopperStrategy.com by a fellow savvy shopper. We love it so much we wanted to share it with all of our readers as well . Thanks Denise!

PlasticJungle.com is this really cool place where you can go to sell or exchange any unwanted gift cards that you might have, plus you can buy gift cards for your favorite stores or restaurants at less than their face value.  Check out some of the deals you can get on gift cards:

• Up to 25% off at 1-800-Flowers
• Up to 12% off at Kohl’s
• Up to 16% off at Payless
• Up to 10% off at TGI Friday’s

These are just a few of my favorites — there are tons more to choose from!  The best part about getting gift cards for cheaper from PlasticJungle.com though is that you can also stack them with other offers to save even more.  For example, JC Penney is one of my favorite department stores because they have great sales and they often put out coupons for even greater savings.  Right now I’m shopping for school uniforms for the kids (required in our county) and they have a great selection at JC Penney’s so a good savings strategy is to buy a $25 JC Penney gift card from PlasticJungle.com for only $21, then use it with one of the store’s awesome $10/$25 coupons.  That way you only pay $11 for $25 worth of uniforms!  SCORE!

If you need shoes for back to school then you can save a whopping 20% off a Foot Locker gift card for a great deal on all the hottest brands.  Buy a $50 Foot Locker gift card from PlasticJungle.com for only $40, then use it with a 15% off coupon to get a $60 pair of shoes, or two $30 pairs of shoes, for only $41 ($60 — 15% = $51 use gift card plus $1 and tax).

Check out this video to see how you can get a very nice $50 dinner for two from TGI Friday’s for only $35!  That’s a fabulous savings of 30%.  The possibilities for savings are endless and one lucky reader will win a $50 gift card of their choice from PlasticJungle.com!

Read the full post on Shopper Strategy and learn how to enter the $50 Plastic Jungle Giveaway!

About the author:

Denise is the mother of four year old quadruplets and a six year old son who loves the finer things in life, but hates to pay full price! Her ShopperStrategy.com blog is devoted to sharing deals and strategies that help you get more for less!