Let’s first know what free gift cards are and why merchants, both online and physical stores give them to their regular customers. It should be noticeable that nothing in this world can come totally free, so often the people who make out free gift cards make their money somewhere else.

The first few factors you need to know about free gift cards are they are kind of expenditures on advertisements. Stores will give them for two major reasons; retain an current customer and for recruiting new ones. Gift cards are actually a giveaway of a part of the profits they made in some purchases you made earlier. If you can produce evidences to show your purchases and the store has a free gift card program then you will be entitled to receive these cards which you can redeem at the right time.

Buying all your needs from the same store has advantages, especially at the time they issue free gift cards. Stores usually make some extra efforts to reward loyal buyers even if that means giving away freebies. So keep to the same store every time you make a purchase, but take care to see that they dont overcharge you for the regular purchases. The other thing you need to understand is whether they have a regular free gift card program and how often they do it. The ones with regular programs should work fine for you.

If given an option between receiving a gift or an experience for a birthday present to make us happier, which should we choose?

According to a Cornell University 2010 study, spending money on experiences makes people happier than spending money on possessions. Their reasoning happens because when it comes to purchasing tangible goods, individuals usually doubt their decisions and worry over missed deals. Meanwhile in the case of an experience, theyre very subjective, causing them to be positive experiences and there’s no other basis of comparison so there exists less negative feelings over missed deals.

Aside from the study, the primary reason experiences can be better than gifts are because individuals adapt to the tangible gifts. Initially, we like them because theyre shiny and brand new. But as individuals and also as creatures of habit, we adjust. As the novelty of the gift goes away, so does the exhilaration. The attributes that were once novel, now end up being the benchmark. Next thing we all know, thoughts start coming up concerning the attributes that we wish it would have. Sure enough, the gift gets replaced with something shinier and brand spankingly newer.