Originally Posted by
intub8r
The $25 minimum makes this offer almost useless. One of my main objections to gift cards is how difficult they are to use as the balance gets low. Often if you don't have enough on the card to cover the whole purchase, the merchant can't do the transaction. Or you have to know exactly what the balance is to tell the cashier, who can then enter it manually. What a pain.
I was excited to see this offer for RDM's, but looks like with the $25 minimum they have protected the gift card industry quite well.
Why do you think retailers love gift cards? How often are you going to spend exactly $25, or exactly $50, or whatever it is. And most people don't like leaving extra money there. So the retailer gets the incremental purchase value.
Unlike you, however, I have never had a problem using a gift card to purchase an item where the gc only covers part of the value. Usually, it is swiped as the payment, then the amount left on the gc gets taken off the balance, then you just pay the rest in cash, with CC, etc. In fact, I can't recall a single time where anything different has occured.