Also, at least if you are a frequent Amazon customer - you don’t have to jump through hoops to use the entire card balance. I recently moved and was due a partial refund on my telecom account. They sent me the $73.20 in the form of a gift card, I bought something that cost $71.00 or so and I couldn’t be bothered to deal with the small balance.
I think an Amazon gift card is a fine idea if and only if you know that the recipient is a frequent Amazon shopper. You can even get them packaged as a wedding gift, with a card, gift box or gift bag included. It’s a nice touch and I don’t think they charge extra for it.
I’m going to my nephew’s wedding soon, and an Amazon gift card was one of the options on the registry. I would think if would be alright, even if not on a registry, especially if they have their registry with Amazon which I imagine a lot of couples do now.
Those gift Visa/MasterCard/Amex cards are EVIL! Watch the fine print - every one of them I’ve seen will nibble away the balance with charges at time of purchase, and “maintenance” fees until the card expires.
In many (most?) states, store gift cards have no monthly costs, and never expire.
For people just starting out in life, my default gift is a fire extinguisher and depending on how well I know/like them, I’ll have a look at their registry. (Go to The Knot to look up registries) If all they have is crazy frippery like crystal stemware they’ll use once in seven years, I’ll do a gift card to that store.
People for whom this isn’t their first time, or they’ve been together for so long (pretty common with gay couples) that they already have a house full of stuff and probably don’t need little silver fortune cookie place card holders from Gump’s, I just go straight to gift cards. Speaking of which, anyone want a set of these? I can’t even remember who gave them to us.
We long ago ran out of wedding presents to re-gift so a gift card seems fine, I would have rather had that than those stupid candlesticks. If I knew the couple needed cash I’d go with a credit card, or just plain cash, but the Amazon gift card would be fine. That all assumes there isn’t any specific item I know they’d want because I’d just get them that and probably throw in some cash on top of that.
Please don’t. Actually spending those down is a pain in the ass.
We received cash/check gifts that allow me to use the same credit card I already have saved on online platforms. I’m grateful for the gifts and additionally grateful that I didn’t have to fiddle around with dozens of different cards.