Christmas is here, its a time of joy and gift-giving, with gift cards being one of the most common items exchanged over the holiday season. If you got a card of a retailer that doesn’t sell anything that might interest you, worry not, because you won’t have to chuck that card out of the window anymore. Starting today Walmart is kicking off a new program in which it will take in your gift cards and give you a Walmart card in return, which won’t expire and can be used in both the online and retail store.
Walmart is accepting gift cards from over 200 retailers, restaurants and airlines. This promotion is currently being run over the holiday period but if the card swap program is successful the retailer might make it permanent.
There is one caveat though. The card that Walmart will provide you is not going to be the exact same value of the card you exchanged for it. For Amazon.com the redemption value is up to 95 percent, for Staples its up to 90 percent, up to 85 percent for Gap and for some brands it may be up to 70 percent.
Even if you get 70 percent of your gift card’s value from Walmart at least its better than not being able to use that card at all. Walmart hasn’t said what metrics it is looking for to deem this program a success, but if the criteria is met, then this would become a permanent affair.
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