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Turn Those Unwanted Gift Cards Into Cash

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Does this ever happen to you? You get a gift card and you love that the person thought to get you a gift, but it’s just not something you would use. You would never tell them that, and instead the gift just sits in your wallet for an eternity… never getting used. Thankfully this is a thing of the past for us because of Coinstar Exchange Kiosks who are sponsoring this post. 

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Coinstar Exchange kiosks are from the same folks who created the Coinstar kiosks you may be familiar with to exchange your coins into dollar bills.

Maybe you’ve seen the Coinstar Exchange bright yellow kiosk? They are located in major US cities markets and are at Vons stores throughout San Diego. At our Vons, it was right by the front door.

They are great to use after the holidays when people would really rather have cash than a gift card they may never use – and interestingly, Coinstar conducted a consumer survey that found 37% of people who received gift cards as gifts last year still haven’t used them all! <— That is totally us.

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I’m changing that this year. We are going to put all of our gift cards to use and enjoy the gift as it was intended.

If we can’t use the gift card as is, we are going to exchange them for cash and put that money towards something we really want.

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The girls and I tried out the new Coinstar Exchange to see how easy it was. 

We do a family gift exchange each year, and Emmy typically gets a gift card that isn’t a good fit for her. So she helped me test it out with a Home Depot Gift Card.

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We answered a couple questions on the screen, and then I swiped the gift card and my ID. Moments later this printed out. We were able to get $15 cash for our $25 gift card that we never would have used.

It was that easy. We walked over to the cashier and handed them the voucher and got our cash.

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The whole process took less than five minutes. 

Here is a list of the gift cards they are currently accepting and here is a kiosk locator

Have you ever been giving a gift card you couldn’t use?

Heather Reese
the authorHeather Reese
Heather Delaney Reese is the storyteller and photographer behind the lifestyle and family travel blog, It's a Lovely Life®! For the past decade, she has vacationed over 150 days a year with her family. She is a vegan, and loves being by the water, spending time with her children, husband, 2 Shih Tzus and Cat.

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