I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like Bed Bath & Beyond no longer sells third party gift cards.
Thia reached out a few days ago to give me a heads up about this post on DISboards:
BBB does not carry 3rd party gift cards anymore. When I went in on Friday (3/11) I didn’t see the rack of 3rd party gift cards as in the past. Just to be sure, I went to my secret stash of amazon gift cards that I have hidden in the store and took 2 up to the self checkout and the system wouldn’t even recognize it anymore. So they have taken the 3rd party gift cards out of the system.
This change must have occurred some time after 2/9/22, since I successfully purchased Amazon gift cards at the self checkout on that date.
Thankfully, I am only left with $200 of happy bride gift cards. I will convert them into BBB gift cards and eventually will use them at BBB.
Thia subsequently emailed again to advise that she’d spoken to a Bed Bath & Beyond store manager and they confirmed that the chain is temporarily out of the gift card game.
I’d held off on publishing about this because I wanted to visit at least one Bed Bath & Beyond store myself before writing about this. I’m currently almost two hours from the closest Bed Bath & Beyond store, but will be moving on to a larger city in a few days and so I was going to check then.
However, a completely different reader reached out tonight to let me know about the same situation. Roman advised the following:
I had an interesting thing happen to me today that may be of interest to other readers. I stopped by one of the BBB locations I visit regularly to pick up some gift cards. I had purchased a bunch of cards there about a month ago with no issue. Today, however, the third-party gift card rack was entirely gone. I then asked a friendly cashier to try ringing up a spare blank gift card that I had accidentally taken with me when I was there a month ago buying cards. The exact same card brand that I bought without issue about a month ago now would not ring up, with the register displaying a pop-up message stating that the item “was not for sale/discontinued.”
I then went to another nearby BBB location where I also successfully purchased gift cards about a month ago. Their third-party gift card was gone as well. I did not have any more spare blanks, so I did not try having the cashier ring up another gift card.
If these reports only involved gift card racks disappearing, this might be slightly less concerning as it could potentially be attributed to some stores being redesigned or that some stores no longer wished to sell gift cards for one reason or another.
However, the fact that valid gift cards can’t even be activated at Bed Bath & Beyond stores in at least three different locations suggests that this is a corporate decision to no longer sell gift cards. That’s backed up by the fact that a store manager Thia spoke to advised that they were temporarily out of the gift card game.
Why This Matters
The fact that Bed Bath & Beyond no longer sells gift cards is a disappointing development. The reason why is because you could buy third party gift cards and Visa gift cards with physical Bed Bath & Beyond and Happy gift cards that could be redeemed in-store. When there were sales on these gift cards, being able to buy them at a discount and convert them to more valuable third party gift card brands was a useful play for some people.
Reason To Be Hopeful? Probably Not.
Something that might be notable is that the store manager Thia spoke to stated that Bed Bath & Beyond is temporarily out of the gift card game. The fact that they said “temporarily” provides a modicum of hope that Bed Bath & Beyond will choose to bring back third party gift cards.
I’m not very hopeful about that though. It’s unlikely that a store manager will be well-acquainted with the inner thinking of upper management at Bed Bath & Beyond. Even pulling third party gift cards but maintaining gift card racks would be a possible reason to anticipate their return in the near future.
However, removing gift card racks nationwide and redesigning stores to account for their removal won’t be a cheap procedure, so I doubt Bed Bath & Beyond made the decision to do that if there was a chance that they’d start selling gift cards again anytime soon. I’d love to be wrong about that, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Possibly changing vendors that provide the cards so had to get everything out of stores before new one could set up and provide inventory?
That would not explain why the gift card racks have been torn out of the wall and replaced with other displays.
The could be moving to a seasonal setup. Aldi does this.
Maybe they are about to upgrade their POS systems chain-wide. I would have to think that this is something they have been wanting to do given their apparent inability to prevent people from buying third party cards with their brand’s card. I could see them rolling out new systems and then bringing Blackhawk back in. I guess we’ll see.
I had no idea that you were able to buy third party gift cards with BBB gift cards. I missed out. Stuck with a whole stack of Happy Gift/Credit cards. So bummed.
Some liquidation ideas for people who are now stuck with a bunch of Happy cards:
(1) Bed Bath and their subsidiary Harmon will price match Target, Walmart, Amazon etc. So it is possible to generate a reasonable amount of organic spend on shampoo, soap, toothpaste and other household essentials. Alternatively, they frequently send you $10 off $30+ and other coupons if you sign up for their e-mail, which can also result in pretty reasonable pricing on household essentials.
(2) Happy Student can also be used for organic spend at World Market, which sells packaged food.
(3) If you live in a state that allows you to cash out small gift cards, you can do a bit of liquidation that way. For example, in California, you can use a $25 Happy Card to buy $5 x 5 BBB gift cards, and then cash them out.
(4) Happy Bride can also be used at JCPenney, which has a decent gift card rack with many locations stocking AirBnB, Delta, Southwest, and Disney.
(5) If (hypothetically) a Happy Gift card were to become so damaged that the magnetic strip no longer worked, Happy Cards will send you a check for the amount left on the card, as they do not do replacements. You will have to provide proof of purchase.
My understanding from talking to a higher up at BBBY is that they are out the 3rd Party GCs. It isnt temporary. Then again they already had some stores that didnt sell those GCs they just made it company wide now