I've talked about Swagbucks a number of times. It's a fun site that gives you “Swag Bucks” for doing things like searching the web, doing surveys, shopping, and voting in polls. These Swag Bucks can be redeemed for all manner of swag: books, magazines, jewelry, movies, sports cards, music, gift cards, and lots more.
I've also tipped my hand as to what the best deal on gift cards from Swag Bucks is: Amazon gift cards. They're only 450 SB for a $5 Amazon code.
SwagBucks has some really cheap gift cards, and some more expensive gift cards. Why do some go for cheap and others not?
Let's pick on Spaceland Recordings for a second. They have the cheapest gift card now: $3 for only 20 Swag Bucks. This appears to kick Amazon in the butt for value. And if you're going for what Spaceland Recordings has to offer, it probably does.
The difference is in the restrictions. Only one Spaceland Recordings code can be used for each purchase. Amazon has no such restrictions. I can use as many codes as I want for one purchase. This lets me get really cheap Prismacolor pencils by knocking $40 off of the price, $5 at a time.
That's why the Amazon codes are more “expensive” than others. What's more, if you want to get really expensive, you can snag $5 directly to PayPal for a whopping 700 SB. But then, you're not even tied to buying stuff at Amazon (which is not that much of a restriction, I think).
This is a good reason to double-check the terms of the gift card before cashing in your Swag Bucks. Clicking on the image of the card in the Swag Store will lead you to these terms.
Are the bigger denominations better deals? For Amazon cards, the answer, surprisingly, is no. The $5 cards are the best deal (90 SB per dollar). The $25 card is 3150 SB, or 126 SB per dollar. The $50 card is 5900 SB, or 108 SB per dollar. The only issue with the smaller denominations is that it's only possible to claim a couple per day. Hence, it may take a while to burn through your SB to buy the cards if you have a lot of SB. I redeem as I go along, so it's not an issue for me.
That's a quick take on the ins and outs of gift cards at SwagBucks. It's easy and fun to earn great gift cards over there.
Thanks for the insight to Swagbugs. The hardest time I have is figuring out when to use Swag bucks or other credit card points because I can never figure out if it’s better to save up so that they convert at better rates. It always seems to cryptic what the conversion rates are and what the best deals are.