It's the common perception of gift certificates as a "more thoughtful" gift than cash that pisses me off. Why is it more thoughtful to spend good money for something of equal value that you can only spend in one place??? They don't even offer an incentive like a 10% discount on anything purchased with the certificates. It's a scam!SylasGaunt wrote:Cash is a great Christmas gift.. Gift Certificates, now those suck (since they're basically crappy cash you can only use at one store)
But as bad as gift certificates are, gift cards are twice as loathsome. At least when you redeem a gift certificate they have to pay you the difference in cash. No such luck with gift cards. You have to use them over and over until the balance is spent, which usually means you have to overspend and then use your own cash on a purchase or leave a balance of something like $3.17 that you'll probably never use--which means the store just made a profit on the well-meaning rube who bought the card for you.
