Do gift cards expire in Australia?

How long must a gift card last in Australia?

Gift cards purchased on or after 1 November 2019 must be redeemable for at least three years after the day they were supplied.

The expiry date has to be shown clearly on the card. If a card has no expiry at all, that has to be stated too.

Three years is a floor, not a ceiling. A business can offer longer, and some do.

Can a business charge fees on a gift card?

A gift card bought after 1 November 2019 cannot carry fees or charges that the holder has to pay after the card was purchased. That kills the practice that used to quietly drain a card sitting unused in a wallet.

Banned: activation fees, account keeping fees, balance inquiry fees and inactivity charges.

Still allowed: booking fees at the same rate as other payment methods, currency conversion fees, a fee to reissue a lost, stolen or damaged card, and ordinary payment surcharges.

Which gift cards are exempt from the three year rule?

The three year minimum does not apply to every card. If your card is any of the following, the rule does not protect it and the expiry printed on it stands.

• Cards that are reloadable or can be topped up.
• Cards donated or given away for promotional purposes.
• Cards available only for a specified period, such as an event voucher.
• Cards supplied at a genuine discount, for example a $100 card sold for $80.
• Cards that are part of an employee reward scheme.
• Cards that are part of a customer loyalty programme.
• Cards bought second hand.

Why do the exemptions catch people out?

Look at that list again with a gift buyer’s eyes. A discounted gift card is exactly the kind of thing somebody buys as a present because it looks like value. A promotional card is exactly the kind of thing that turns up in a showbag or a competition. Both are outside the three year rule.

The reloadable exemption is the broadest. Plenty of cards that look like ordinary retailer gift cards can be topped up, which takes them outside the minimum entirely.

So the practical advice is not "gift cards last three years". It is: read the card, because the answer depends on which kind you are holding.

What can I do if my gift card expired early?

If the card was supplied on or after 1 November 2019, is not in the exempt list, and expired inside three years, the expiry was not lawful and the business should honour it. Raise it with the retailer first, then with the ACCC or your state fair trading office.

If the card is genuinely expired after three or more years, you have no legal claim. It is still worth asking. Retailers frequently reissue as a goodwill matter, and a polite email costs nothing.

If the business has gone into administration, a gift card is an unsecured debt, which in practice means it is usually worth very little. That is the strongest argument for spending a card promptly rather than saving it for the right occasion.

The honest case against giving a gift card

We are a gift site, so this is against interest: a gift card transfers the work of choosing back to the person you were choosing for, and adds a deadline.

There are good reasons to give one anyway. Distance, a hobby you know nothing about, a person who genuinely prefers to pick. But "I could not think of anything" is not one of them, and the recipient can usually tell which it was.