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The holidays may be over, but millions of Americans are still holding onto unused gift cards — and January 17 is meant to change that.
Since 2020, National Use Your Gift Card Day has been observed on the third Saturday of January, encouraging people to spend their gift cards before they’re forgotten, lost, or even stolen.
Tracy Tillson created the day after noticing how often gift cards go unused weeks after the holidays.
According to the National Retail Federation, $29 billion in gift cards were expected to be purchased during the recent holiday season.
A 2024 Bankrate survey found that 43% of Americans have at least one unused gift card, with an average unused balance of $244.
For Alejandro Iraheta and his girlfriend Allison Cano, gift cards are a favorite present — but they treat them very differently.
“We all need money in a way, right? Iraheta asked rhetorically. “Let the person buy what they want instead of me forcing what they might not want, and I’m cool with it.”
Alejandro and Allison love giving and getting gift cards. However, one of them sometimes forgets about them.
However, Cano admitted that, although she prefers getting gift cards, she sometimes waits too long to use them.
“I think I just kept putting it off,” she said. “I just was like, ‘I’ll look at it later, I’ll look at it later,’ but yeah, I just forgot, to be honest.”
Tillson said that’s a common problem.
“There should be a day when everyone remembers to use them,” she said.
Hence, she created National Use Your Gift Card Day to fall just weeks after the holidays, when many cards are already being overlooked.
“Because by the third week after the holidays, if you haven’t used gift cards, there’s a chance they’ve ended up in a drawer or a wallet,” Tillson said.
Tillson believes people don’t always see gift cards as real money, which can lead to wasted value.
“I was just talking to someone an hour ago, she goes, ‘I was going to a store, I had the gift cards, I still paid, and then I realized I had gift cards for the store,’” she said with a laugh, admitting the same thing has happened to her.
Unused gift cards ultimately benefit companies, which collect the money without selling anything. And beyond forgetting them, there’s another risk — theft.
Gift card numbers can be stolen, meaning someone else could spend the balance before the rightful owner ever does. That’s why experts recommend using gift cards as soon as possible.
As for Allison, if Alejandro gave her a gift card that went unused, she says honesty would come — eventually.
“I probably would tell him the truth, but it would take a lot for me to tell him because he would probably be hurt,” she said.
So the National Use Your Gift Card Day may be worth more than the balance itself — serving as a reminder not to let money slip away.
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