Those gift cards!  You received a few for Christmas, then your birthday and you aren’t sure where the others came from. You used them to make various purchases and  and found that you now have gift cards with a few dollars left on them?  Forget to use them or maybe you aren’t sure how much is left on the card?  You may be thinking that you will eventually use them but the amount is so small.  Well there may be a solution to this problem so you can make sure those balances don’t go to waste,  This solution really only works on gift cards with a credit card logo on them such as Visa, Mastercard or American Express.  Basically any card you can use at ANY store.

Note: You may have to REGISTER the card with the bank in order to use it, especially with American Express. So if the transaction doesn’t go through, you may have to call the issuing service and assign your name, address and phone number to the card. Make 100% sure they match your Amazon account.

• Step 1: Gather all your old gift cards that still have small balances on them.  Get them all!
• Step 2: If you don’t already have a Amazon account, sign up for a shopping cart.
• Step 3: Go to the gift cards page on Amazon.com and select and email gift card.
• Step 4: Grab one of your gift cards and call the # on the card (or use the web) to check the balance left on the card.
• Step 5: Enter the amount left on the card into the box labelled “amount” in the Amazon E-mail gift card details box (.50 cents is the least amount it will take).
• Step 6: Enter one of your own email addresses in the recipient email box.

• Step 7: Click ‘add to order’ on the lower right.
  • Step 8: Click ‘proceed to checkout’ on the right side.
  • Step 9: Sign into your account when prompted.
  • Step 10: Under “more payment options“, select Add a Card and enter the card number, name and the expiration date for the gift card you just checked the balance of and click ‘continue.’
  • Step 11: Double check all the info and click ‘Place your order.’
  • Step 12: Wait for email with gift card claim code and copy the code to your computer clipboard.
  • Step 13: Go back to Amazon.com and then select ‘your account’ on the menu at the top.
  • Step 14: In the second area under ‘Gift Cards‘ select ‘apply a gift card to your account‘ and paste your claim code into the box and click ‘apply to your account.’
  • Step 15: Repeat steps 3-14 for each of the gift cards you collected that have small balances on them.

Now that you have all of these cards registered on Amazon you can now use the card to purchase at one place.  Once you receive the email from Amazon.com with your gift card claim code, throw away those old gift cards immediately.

While this may seem complicated, it’s really very easy.

Most credit scores operate within the range of 301 to 850. Within that range, there are different categories, from bad to excellent.

But even these aren’t set in stone. That’s because lenders all have their own definitions of what is a good credit score. One lender that is looking to approve more borrowers might approve applicants with credit scores of 680 or higher. Another might be more selective and only approve those with scores of 750 or higher. Or both lenders might offer credit to anyone with a score of at least 650, but charge consumers with scores below 700 a higher interest rate!