What are some of the mistakes people make trying to save money using gift cards? And how can we help people avoid those mistakes? I would say if you're not getting like a major purchase, like an appliance, you should also consider that if you put it on a credit card, your card may or may not have some kind of extended warranty protection.

So you need to weigh the value of the discount that you're getting on the gift cards versus what you might be giving up if you value that warranty or if you value those other things. Another thing that that is a tradeoff is if you're buying these gift cards to make a purchase that you might return.

So clothing comes to mind. It can be very annoying if you go back and return those. They're not going to give you cash for your return. Generally, they're going to give you gift cards. If you're the type of person who buys everything in three sizes and you have it shipped to your house and you try it on and you send back the ones you don't want, then gift cards could be a bigger mess than it's worth, because you're going to end up with a bunch of gift cards and weird denominations, and you may lose them over the course of like however long until you shop at that store again.

There are definitely tradeoffs. And you should make sure that the the value that you're getting from the discount is worth those tradeoffs.