If you like to gift gift-cards but prefer to gift physical tangible gift cards, there are still a number of options available at Amazon with free 1-day shipping for all (they do that often for gift cards since they are featherweight).
Prime members have more options on free 1-day shipping or next-day delivery. However, some of these gift cards also offer free 1-day for non-Prime members. Regardless, the best way to tell for sure is to add the items of interest to your shopping cart and see what shipping fees and options the shopping cart shows you. It is the ultimate decider after all 🙂
+ Snow Flake Tin ($25 to $2000)
+ Holiday Teddy Bear ($200 or $250)
+ Merry Christmas Tin ($50 to $1000; preset amounts only)
+ Smiling Santa Tin ($50 to $200; preset amounts only)
+ Plaid Box with either Nativity Scene or Snow Globe option ($50 to $1000)
+ classic-looking Brown & Blue Tin ($25 to $2000)
+ Minimalist hippie/hipster Mini Amazon Shipping Cardboard ($50 to $2000)
+ Santa Tin [CAUTION: it says “Ho!” on the gift card which may be misinterpreted by prickly recipients!]
+ over 120 options available, some are tins, some are greeting cards, some are alternative approaches/designs (eg book bookmarks
+ some gift cards have preset amounts or you can enter an amount in the “Other” box up to $2000, others only have preset amounts
+ these are the Christmas Delivery Cut-Off Dates but the Shopping Cart estimate is the most accurate for each particular order at each particular point in time
The above are Amazon’s own gift cards, but they now also offer gift cards for other retailers, some of which are eligible for free 1-day shipping. Check the full list here (includes Whole Foods, Netflix, Starbucks, various restaurants and clothing stores, Spotify, etc)
TIP: if you are not going to be around to physically receive the gift cards, you also have the option to send them to a local Amazon Locker facility (eg 711, Safeway, etc – availability varies by region and zipcode).
Proceed with caution and watch what’s happening on every page when you go to order. I struggled for 45 minutes last night to order two $25 gift cards for other people. I tried ordering the first one in a tin. I selected two tins that on the gift cards selection page showed as being available in $25 denominations, but on each of those cards’ product pages they were not available for $25. I went back and kept looking, found another tin listed as available for $25 on the gift cards page. It was also listed as available for $25 on the product page. When I selected it and proceeded to the next page, it was in my cart and magically listed as a $50 card. I canceled that order, went back, kept looking, found another card in tin at $25, and the same thing happened. That one was from Amazon itself. I was getting very hot under the collar.
I gave up on tins and tried a couple of cards in gift boxes. The same thing happened with one. The other one went through at $25, but although it had said differently on the product page, at the last checkout page it said it wouldn’t be available until Dec.. 27th! I tried yet another card in box. It said it was in stock. I went through the checkout, and it there said it wouldn’t be available until Jan. 2. I canceled, left Amazon and went away to think for a little while. I came back and found the secret to finally getting this ordeal over with. Here’s the only way I could get two $25 gift cards at $25 and to be delivered by the Dec. 21:
Select a gift card in a greeting card that is sold by Amazon or its greeting and gift card subsidiary (I forget the name but you can tel if you look aroundl). I also found that although I had marked the “this is a gift” box on the checkout page, and even though I had indicated the recipients name and adress on a previous page, on the fourth and final page, Amazon had selected my default name and address on EVERY purchase attempt.
Especially if one is a Prime member, selecting, buying and properly directing delivery of a gift card should be the slam-dunk-easiest Amazon transaction of all, and in the past it pretty much was. Something’s not working now. Be warned and be very deliberate and careful, or you could be in for a nasty surprise. I suspect part of the problem is a function of Amazon letting so many third parties sell its gift cards. I liked it better when a gift purchase was from Amazon and only Amazon.
Ouch! I guess it’s the digital equivalent of a busy and chaotic mall the week before Christmas.
They also often ask to re-enter the full credit card number for gift card purchases, probably an extra level of protection/annoyance.
As far as other sellers offering Amazon’s gift cards, which ones have you seen? The only one I’ve seen selling Amazon gift cards with value loaded on them is “ACI Gift Cards Inc” which is one of Amazon’s many “personas”. Amazon itself only sells those $2 Greeting Cards bundled with confusingly-named non-reloadable “Anytime Gift Cards” that have no value loaded on them at purchase time.
In the last sentence of my comments above, I should’ve written: I liked it better when a gift card purchase was from Amazon and only Amazon.
“I guess it’s the digital equivalent of a busy and chaotic mall the week before Christmas.”
I thought that at first. Then, it struck me that it’s like saying a vending machine in a busy store at this time of year gets a little crazy. But wait. A Coke machine is set up to sell Cokes. It’s loaded with Cokes and other drinks or it’s empty. It works or it doesn’t. Amazon’s gift card sales strike me as being the same. The company’s Web designers and programmers have set the system up offer items available for various prices and respond in prescribed (presumably logical) ways when a customer goes to buy a card. As for things being busy, that could result in slowed response time to choice, but I doubt it would cause all the screwing up I ran into. And, I ordered at a very late hour PST. I find it hard to believe that Amazon’s system was being swamped across the other time zones at that hour.
Amazon’s gift cards can be a great way to make sure giftees are remembered with something they will really like. As opposed to a tie that goes to the back of the closet or sweater that goes to Goodwill. :{ I ordered ones in August and October and the buying experience was nothing like what I ran into in the wee hours this morning.
BTW, I don’t recall the names of the other vendors, but there was one something like Bond Gifts & Cards. I’m sure it and a few others weren’t Amazon subsidiaries. As for the credit card number check, I got that too. That part didn’t bother me, except that it added to all the previously wasted time. I want Amazon and other online sellers to be careful and make sure about credit card validity and to make sure the person trying to use one knows what he/she should know to verify ownership of the card.
Interesting! They may have found a way to sneak in, a loophole or a bug or some server update or sync issue. Amazon usually rules with iron fist when it comes to others selling Amazon’s own branded products at the Amazon website. I’ll keep an eye out for it! Thanks for the alert!
It might’ve been a server updating or maintenance issue, where they do housekeeping in the wee hours and have reduced capacity or C-team equipment handling sales while the main servers catch up, I suppose. Looking back at my previous comment’s, I’m thinking instead of Bond’s it was Dick’s Gifts & Cards. But I’m not sure. There were three or four such unfamiliar names as I kept trying to get what I wanted in card denominations and what they were ensconced in. In any case, I would welcome some iron-fisted straightening out by next year. 😉