Update 10/18/19: GiftCards.com is now selling the Happy Holidays cards online (our affiliate link), but not the Happy You cards yet. The Happy Holidays gift cards aren’t listed at HappyCards.com yet, so hopefully they’ll appear in time to take advantage of the Happy Amex Offer.
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Update 10/16/19: GiftCards.com still shows these new brands as ‘Coming Soon’, but Chase has the Happy Holidays available for Ultimate Rewards redemptions at 10% off. It’s not worth using UR in this way as you can get much better value by transferring them to airline and hotel partners, but that hopefully means the Happy You and Happy Holidays cards will soon be (or might already be) in grocery stores and other places that offer deals on Happy gift cards (e.g. Office Depot).
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MetaBank has announced that it’ll be launching two new Happy gift card brands in the coming months – Happy Holidays and Happy You.
Even better, these cards will have new brands added. Most interestingly from a gift card reselling perspective, Lowe’s and GameStop will be options on one or both of these cards.
Here’s a list of the new cards and the stores where they can be used:
Happy Holidays
- Macy’s
- Ulta Beauty
- Lowe’s
- Red Lobster
- GameStop
- Chili’s
- P.F. Chang’s
Happy You
- The Cheesecake Factory
- Macy’s
- Ulta Beauty
- AMC Theatres
- GameStop
- Dave & Buster’s
- P.F. Chang’s
The reason why it’s great that Lowe’s and GameStop are being added is because they sell third party gift cards. Happy gift cards frequently go on sale, so being able to pick those up at a discount and use them to buy other gift cards at Lowe’s and GameStop means it’s easier to make a profit on them.
At the moment, Home Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond and Buy Buy Baby are the only stores (that I’m aware of), that offer this option and have it be profitable. Some stores like JCPenney are available on some Happy cards, but their gift card rack usually only contains restaurant gift cards and so provides less opportunity for making a few bucks.
Be aware that MetaBank added wording a few months ago specifying that Happy gift cards can’t be used to buy third party gift cards. In reality, there doesn’t seem to have been anything hardcoded at these stores to prevent these types of transactions, so it should still be possible provided you don’t get a cashier who refuses to accept payment with a Happy gift card for third party gift cards.
It remains to be seen as to whether the Happy Holidays gift card will only be available at the end of the year or if it’ll be available year-round. Seeing as that’s the only brand that includes Lowe’s, let’s hope we’ll be able to get our hands on it year-round.