List of Merchant Gift Cards Which Can be Loaded to your Account

A reader asked we put together a list of merchant gift cards which can be loaded and locked into your account or app with the retailer. This is helpful when you buy a second-hand gift card and are worried about it being drained. It’s also convenient to load it immediately into your balance, especially if it’s a merchant you use regularly.

There are actually two methods how draining a gift card into your account can work. One is the account model, what Amazon uses, where you drain the gift card into your account balance. The other is the card model, what Starbucks uses, where you have one primary card and you can zero out any other gift cards and load their balance onto your primary card.

Note: most retailers allow you to load a gift card into your store app or online account. This is not what we are discussing. In those cases the card continues to work as before. For example, if you add a gift card to your Walmart app or online account, the card is conveniently saved for next shopping, BUT the physical card can still be used in-store and the card number can still be used online in a different Walmart.com account. Our list is specifically for those retailers who allow zeroing out and draining a gift card into your account or onto another card.

Let us know in the comments of any corrections, and of course please inform us of other retailer gift cards we can add to the list!

Account Model: