[Expired] Swych App Review for Buying and Swapping Gift Cards + Referral Bonus

We’ve been seeing numerous deals with Swych over the past months. After ignoring it for while, I decided it was time to signup. Here’s my review of the Swych app.

Buy Gift Cards with Swych

Swych iOS link, Swych Android link

The Swych app sells first-hand gift cards for many merchants. All gift cards are instantly available in the app. Popular options include Amazon, Best Buy, Kohl’s, Hotels.com, Groupon, and Sears.

An interesting feature of the app is that you can specify the exact amount of the gift card to purchase. You’ll always have to either round up or down to the dollar amount closest to what you want.

You can buy a gift card for yourself or send to a friend.

They also have some fancy way of giving a gift card through Siri. These kinds of things don’t interest me, but here’s a link for those who are.

Gift Card Discounts

Many of the gift cards come with a discount at checkout of between 1-4%.

It’s not well advertised what the discount is, just begin the checkout process and see if there’s a discount at checkout. The biggest discount is 4% on brands like Gap, and other brands like Amazon and Best Buy don’t have any discount at all.

I like the fact that the discount comes off the purchase right away, not as a credit for future use.

Promotional Offers

Swych periodically has deals to get popular gift card brands at a discount with a promo code. These offers aren’t ever scalable since they can only be done once per account. Promotions will usually show near the top of the gift card list in the default setting.

Sample Promotions: We’ve seen deals like $50 Hotels.com for $40, $60 Nike for $50, and $100 Lowe’s for $85.

Swap Gift Cards

The app is specifically designed to allow ‘swyching’ one gift card for another. In practice, it only works (as I can tell) in the following limited scenario: if you receive a gift card from someone else via the Swych app (as noted above, there is an option to send a card to a friend), then the recipient will be able to switch/swap that gift card for another brand they’d like instead. Swipe right or left on the gift card for swapping options.

The swych/switch is at an even $1-$1 ratio, so if you get a $50 Old Navy gift card, you’d be able to swych/switch it for a $50 Amazon or Best Buy gift card, for example.

Send GC and Earn Swych Points

You can buy a gift card for yourself or send to a friend. Toggle between those options at the top of the page.

When sending a gift card to a friend, you’ll earn Swych points. Each $1 of gift card value gives you 1% back in Swych Points which you can use on a future purchase. Points expire at the end of the following calendar year.

I can’t actually get the For a Friend option to work for me at all; when I enter the email address, there is no Continue button to click (an IT glitch as I see it). I’m not sure whether gifting gets the discounts mentioned above (‘Gift Card Discounts’) in addition to the 1% in Swych Points or not.

Swych Wallet

All gift card purchases are saved in your Swych wallet. You can reference them at any time in the future.

You can also add other cards, purchased elsewhere to your Swych wallet which helps with obtaining a bar-code for in-store use. It can also be a way to consolidate all your gift cards in one place.

Payment Options

The app initially shows Apple or Android Pay and Pay with Amazon options. If you click Change Payment Method, a Paypal option will show. They don’t currently support direct credit card payments (coming soon), but of course you can use a credit card with the Amazon, Apple, or Paypal payment methods.

On the checkout screen you’ll see the Amazon and Apple payment options at the bottom, and higher up you’ll see a place to input a promo code. Only one promo code is allowed per purchase, so you can’t stack your $5 signup bonus (which comes in the form of a promo code, see below) with some other promo code (like the promotional gift card offers, see above).

An interesting thing is that Swych apparently counts as a bonus 5x category on the Chase INK card when you choose Paypal payment option. So this is another way to buy just about any gift card and earn 5x with INK. Update: no longer earns 5x.

$5 Signup Bonus

There is a $5 referral bonus for the new member and the referrer. The minimum gift card purchase on the app is $10 which means you can basically get any $10 gift card for $5 with the signup offer.

I bought a $10 Amazon gift card for $5.

For the New Member

Use a referral link when signing up to get $5 off a purchase. You’ll have to enter the referral code at checkout to get the $5 discount (the referral code is the promo code to get the discount).

You probably need to use the referral link at the time of signup for the bonus to work. Also, it seems you need to use the referral bonus on your first purchase. If you want to take advantage of another promotional offer on Swych, be sure to first buy the $10 Amazon/whatever gift card for $5 before doing the other offer.

For the Referrer

The referrer also gets a $5 bonus for each referrer. You’ll get the referral bonus within 48 hours of when the new user makes a purchase.

There is a limit of ten $5 referral bonuses. There is also a limit of one $5 bonus per day, but that just means that the credit will delay until the next day, e.g. if you refer two people the same day, you’ll see one $5 bonus and then the next day you’ll see another $5 bonus.

You can find your referral code by going to the menu in the top-left of the app.

Feel free to share your referral link in this dedicated page. Don’t share it in the comments here since we want to reserve it for discussion.

Final Thoughts

The Swych app is actually more interesting than expected:

  • Earn 5x with INK when paying with Paypal
  • They regularly run nice promotional offers
  • Get up to a 4% instant discount on select cards
  • Purchase gift cards in exact amounts (rounded to the nearest dollar)

Could be a useful app to download and keep in mind for the future to earn 5x on various gift cards and maybe get a small discount to boot. And hopefully there’ll be some nice promotions along the way. In any case, you can use a referral link and get $5 off any $10 gift card the app allows.

Similar sites we’ve reviewed on Doctorofcredit:

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Favour Joshua
Favour Joshua (@guest_1645976)
July 2, 2023 20:31

As someone Coming from platforms like buysellvouchers, Paxful etc I am more comfortable making purchases with crypto currency. Does Swych support such ?

Hari
Hari (@guest_697745)
December 30, 2018 15:06

Please send your referral link

tony
tony (@guest_538699)
December 19, 2017 21:35

Anyone know if citi at&t card earn 3X with this?

Becky Rea
Becky Rea (@guest_656318)
October 12, 2018 11:37

Hi Chuck-re: “Swyching” a card in the Swych app. Under “Swap Gift Cards” above you weren’t sure if the value of the gc that you swyched to was the same value as the original card. The answer is yes. The value from original card to “swyched” card is 100% the same. There are no fees or penalties for “swyching”.

Regarding the customer service comments-the company has recently instituted new best practices and policies to improve the consumer engagement. Also, they are very responsive on their FB page when a question is asked or an issue issue is posted

joE
joE (@guest_434918)
July 6, 2017 22:29

Trying to purchase a $53 amazon GC and getting the following error when I try to switch payment type to paypal. This is not the first time I’m making a purchase from them but the second time.

” We are sorry, this transaction cannot currently be completed. The amount due exceeds the maximum allowed for a single transaction. Please reduce the gift card amount and try again. We apologize for the inconvenience”

So I went back and changed it to $50 and now it is allowing me to continue and checkout with Paypal.

Not sure if this a user specific limitation or what.

RTC
RTC (@guest_475985)
September 12, 2017 22:44

I got the same message on my first purchase; has everyone gotten this, or know how long before the limit is loften (if ever)?

Brian
Brian (@guest_425408)
June 22, 2017 11:38

I get a $0 discount when using the first post on your referral’s page. Looks like others are, too. This was my first purchase and it will not discount the Amazon gift card.

NinjaX
NinjaX (@guest_425598)
June 22, 2017 16:26

its because those guys are idiots. i have complained to them many times about this YMMV referral code issue and refuse to make my first purchase unless it works. its only $5 but I dont want to miss out and not give my friend a referral either.

their response to me was that you MUST use the referral link to SIGN UP. otherwise, the stupid ass referral code alone wont work. then what is the point of the code displayed on the profile screen? so dumb. so I also tried to sign up with a referral LINK to test it out. still didnt work.

I asked for a manual adjustment, they wouldnt do it. seriously, fuk those guys. but maybe if enough people complain then they will change their damn minds. lets all message them and see.

i just HATE stupid loopholes for simple referral bonuses. a referral is a referral. dont make it so damn complicated.

Dustin
Dustin (@guest_425647)
June 22, 2017 17:24

I can’t get any referral code to work. I tried one from the thread. In your profile, it lists the referring person. I tried other but they would not work either. However, those say code not allowed. Customer service wanted a screen shot.

Brian
Brian (@guest_425292)
June 22, 2017 09:37

How do you link your Chase card to Paypal without incurring fees?

Electroman
Electroman (@guest_425466)
June 22, 2017 12:56

You add the card to PayPal and make it the default payment option. No fees.

Art
Art (@guest_425156)
June 22, 2017 01:37

Can I get someone s referral link?

Stvr
Stvr (@guest_425141)
June 22, 2017 00:33

Have had MAJOR problems with them. Do not use.

Phil
Phil (@guest_425248)
June 22, 2017 08:37

Please elaborate…

NinjaX
NinjaX (@guest_425602)
June 22, 2017 16:33

agreed. their customer service is equivalent to eBay. so damn pissed when it comes to their customer service resolving issues. i thought they were legit based on their founder background, but this TX company is a joke. maybe it too young. just started last year.

TG
TG (@guest_425127)
June 22, 2017 00:05

Requires a phone number to sign up and it doesn’t seem like it accepts Google Voice.

Filip
Filip (@guest_425217)
June 22, 2017 06:30
  TG

Exactly the same problem. Doesn’t accept neither my Google Voice nor my Freedompop.
So, bad luck for me 🙁

David L
David L (@guest_425095)
June 21, 2017 22:47

Just a DP, that I’ve now purchased three GC from them (all promos), using Android Pay, and worked easy without any purchases. It’s instantly available.

David L
David L (@guest_425096)
June 21, 2017 22:47

*without any Problems