How to use up the last few dollars on American Express, MasterCard or Visa Gift Cards on Amazon.com

I don’t know about you but sometimes the AmEx, MC or Visa gift cards can be tricky to use. You have to make sure that your total is at or below the gift card limit to use it otherwise it will reject the charge (you can’t just add additional payment after). In the past I will give them $10 or something to pay for the additional but then I’m left with $1.33 or $3.72 on a card and then it sits in my wallet forever!

I finally thought of a way to use them today! I had a $25 gift card and a few other little cards that I needed to finish off and my total was just above $25 so the one gift card wasn’t big enough :( . My first thought was, “I need to write to Amazon to tell them to let you use multiple payment methods” and then I thought, “duh, it will let you do that with a gift card!” So here it is (in case you were like me and holding on to various cards that you didn’t want to throw away but hadn’t used).

1) Look at the back of your gift card(s) and follow the directions to find out the balance (either a website or a phone call will tell you).

2) Go to amazon.com/giftcards (you might be able to do this on other retailers if they let you pick your own amount).

3) Enter in the amount (I did one for $1.33 and it was just fine) and send it to yourself (I know, I’m so nice!). Repeat for as many cards as you’d like.

4) Refresh your email and it should have two emails, one saying that you ordered a gift card and one with the delivery of your e-gift card! Click where it says Redeem Now and continue to Amazon.com to do so.

5) Click Apply to Your Account (even if you’re not ready to use it the same day; it will just keep it safe for you there!) Repeat with additional gift cards to add to the balance (I bought three gift cards so I did this three times!)

6) When you’re ready to use it you can select it from your payment methods – if you put it in before you’ll have to “change payment type” and then on the next screen it is at the bottom of the payment methods under gift card or promotional balance. If your gift card balance doesn’t cover the total then select an additional bank card or payment method to cover the rest. As long as your over $25 and bought from Amazon.com (it will say eligible for Prime) you’ll get free shipping too! :)

Thanks Amazon.com for saving my wallet from all of these gift cards with almost nothing left! :) And thank you UPS and FedEx for delivering my packages! :)