Someone gave me a gift card to Starbucks – I don’t drink coffee. Well, usually – luckily I have a standing Sunday morning Starbucks date with a pal, so I guess I’ll be treating for the next month or so.
But I definitely did have a pang when I saw it was Starbucks and not Borders or B&N, either of which would have been a snap for me to use.
Have you gotten any gift cards this year? Are they to establishments you frequent, or did some corporation just make free money off a clueless relative or colleague?
Would you consider re-gifting it? That’s what I would do, although it is hard for me to imagine a store where I couldn’t find something for me or for someone I wanted to buy a gift for. I am not much of a coffee drinker, either, but Starbucks has pastries and tea, and I do like those.
Nah, I’ll use it – no doubt my friend E. will be delighted to let me get his double mocchiottos (sp?) for a few weeks. I’m just whining because it wasn’t from somewhere “good.”
I got one last year for $50 from PF Changs*. Where I never eat and the one time I did eat there, wasn’t impressed. Just found it the other day and have no idea what to do with it…
*It was a gift from the girls I coach. They asked the other coach’s husband what they should get and he recommended his favorite restaurant. :rolleyes:
I remember reading last year about websites where you can exchange gift cards you don’t want for ones you do. I’m at work and the internet is very limited here, so I can’t google for you myself, but I bet if you googled “gift card exchange”, you could find them yourself.
I haven’t got any gift cards myself this XAMS. I did get a (very generous!) card to MAC for my birthday this year from my friends. Oooh, that was a fun day.
For some reason, people have been giving me a lot of Bath and Bodyworks gift cards lately.
My skin care regimine is extremely basic; I have some (unscented, dye-free) products that I like, and I get them at the supermarket. I don’t want scented candles, scented soap, scented lotion, or stuff like that. And inevitably if I do find a scent I might like, all they have in that scent is bubble bath and “body splash.” All their liquid hand soap is antibacterial, which I refuse to buy because I’m kind of against breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria for no good reason. Any practical items they might have (natural sponges, pumice stones, nail brushes, etc.) all seem to only come in expensive gift baskets.
So usually I buy a bottle of shampoo and tube of True Blue cuticle conditioner (which, in all fairness, rocks), then I give the balance to my friend who likes their stuff.
The bad news for my friend is that I haven’t gotten any this year (so far!).
$10 gift card to Walmart. I don’t even know where a Walmart is–I’m pretty sure I’d spend about $10 in gas to get there (because Iwould get lost).
Also, a $10 gift card to one of two suburban malls. I would get lost going to either of these malls, they are probably even further away than Walmart, and for $10 there’s not much I could buy at the stores I 'd go to there anyway. At least at Walmart I could probably get something for my $10, once I got there.
Both of these were from my office, as some kind of incentive or another. My husband’s office gives somewhat better incentives–$25 gift card to TGI Fridays. We probably won’t use it. He also got a $25 Starbucks and that one worked out well for both of us.
I got a $20 card for Long’s Drugstore from a good friend. At first I was nonplussed–after all, how much thought could have possibly gone into THAT? Well, it turned out that I was in need of a couple of toiletry items, so it turned out to be an okay, if somewhat boring, gift.
