Trade in those unwanted gift cards

Cardavenue has free registration and charges an auction seller 3.95% of the auction's closing price plus a 50-cent closing fee. Auction buyers pay no fee. For trades, both parties involved pay 3.95% of the value of the card and a 50-cent fee.

If the value of a gift card is not equal to the value of the card a customer wants to trade for, he or she can offer the other party cash for the balance. Those negotiations are between the two parties. PayPal is accepted.

Plastic Jungle will buy gift cards of at least $20 with no pending expiration dates and issued by one of its QuickCash merchants, which include Best Buy, Costco, Lowe's, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn and dozens of others. Customers receive 60% to 75% of the remaining balance on their gift cards. All of the merchants and the percentages paid for the gift cards are listed on Plastic Jungle's Web site.

It's free to list a card for sale. Plasticjungle.com charges a 10% commission plus shipping when a card is sold. Buyers pay no fees. PayPal is accepted.

Swapagift.com also offers customers cash for their cards, with similar terms: a percentage of the remaining value of cards from specific merchants. Its cash offer has a bit of a twist, though: Customers can send their unwanted gift cards (at least $25 and without pending expiration) to the company, and Swapagift.com will verify the cards and send checks to the customers within 48 hours.

"If you look at any exchange, like the stock market, you can see that there isn't always a buyer on the other end," says Michael Kelly, the chief operating officer and president of Swapagift.com. "We were looking for markets in need of liquidity, and gift cards were our first selection. In order to make it function like a stock market, we would make that market. We would be the market specialists. Our approach supplies some liquidity to the marketplace."

Customers search for matches

In addition, Swapagift.com has a card-matching feature that allows a customer to see who's offering certain cards and who's looking for cards. For example, if you have an Ann Taylor gift card, you plug that into a search, and the search yields cardholders who are willing to trade their cards for an Ann Taylor.

Cards that are purchased by Swapagift.com are identified as such on the Web site with a logo. Every card is verified and guaranteed, and Swapagift.com provides free shipping and insurance.

Users are instructed to verify the balances on their gift cards before listing them for sale or trade. "All these cards have the online capability to have balances verified," Kelly says. "We charge a listing fee to assure that the seller is representing the goods honestly."

Swapagift.com charges a flat fee of $3.99 to list a gift card, regardless of the value of the card. The listing is valid for 90 days, and customers who have not sold or traded their cards by that time are given a chance to re-list it for 60 days at no extra charge. There is no transaction fee for the buyer of a card.

At Gift Cards Again, you can buy gift cards at a discount. They arrive in seven days, and shipping is free. At its sister site, Gift Card Buy Back, you can sell unwanted gift cards and get your money within 10 days, with a 30-day return policy. As with the other sites that buy cards for cash, a customer receives only a percentage of the verified value of the card.

The winter holiday season is big, but the secondary market in gift cards booms in the spring, too, with Mother's Day, Father's Day, weddings and graduations.

"We get a lot of Fortunoff's and Tiffany's cards," Cardavenue's Butler says. "They're returned wedding gifts. It's regifting. You can get a card for something you really want."

This article was reported and written by Ellen Cannon for Bankrate.com.

Updated Dec. 28, 2007

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