A gift card is what you give when you have given up on finding something better; that is what most assume. But the National Retail Federation’s 2025 holiday survey report indicates that more than half of Americans aged 65 years and older were planning to buy a gift card last holiday season, more than all other age groups. They also projected that card spending would average $58, five dollars more than the average shopper.
In total, gift card spending for the season was predicted to reach $29 billion. This is the year that streak begins Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26, through Black Friday on the 27th, and hits Cyber Monday on the 30th.
Distance Is Harder to Shop for Than Time
The group that buys the most gift cards is also the group with the least day-to-day connection to the people on its list: the grandchild in the next state over, the adult child whose home they have never actually set foot inside.
When giving a gift feels wrong, you get a gift card. Thats better than guessing what someone wants when you really have no idea what their taste is anymore.
Why the Retailer Matters When You Give a Gift Card
When the whole idea is to let someone choose their own gift, a card for just one store is not as limiting as it might seem. If you’re looking for gift cards from different brands, a site like www.gift-card.com saves you the hassle of checking each brand’s website separately.
You can browse cards from hundreds of US brands in one place. Target and Disney are there, along with plenty of restaurants and travel companies, so you can sort it all out in one place.
Someone searching for a Target gift card online, for example, can buy one on its own or find it alongside other brands on a multi-brand storefront. Digital delivery means the card can reach the recipient the same day it is ordered.
The person opening the email then decides what the gift becomes. One person might use it at Target, another at Disney. It all depends on what they want.
The Part That Removes the Deadline
American gift cards have another useful detail that tends to disappear into the small print. Under the CARD Act of 2009, funds generally have to remain valid for at least five years from activation or the most recent load.
The card bought over Thanksgiving weekend does not have to turn into a purchase that same week. Christmas can come and go without the card being touched. It might finally get used during the January sales, or in March when the recipient spots something they want.
By that time the wrapping paper is long gone, and nobody remembers what they bought on Black Friday.
The List That Gets Shorter
The households buying the most gift cards this season are not the ones who ran out of time. They are the ones who stopped pretending they could guess the right size, the right color, or the right store, and their own shopping list gets shorter the moment they admit that too.
The Thanksgiving weekend is when a lot of those decisions get made. On gift-card.com‘s US storefront, a shopper can find cards for Target, Disney, and other brands in the same place, then send the one that makes sense for whoever is on the other end of the email.
