Gift Cards | featured news

Supermarket chain Safeway SWY +4.30% is planning to spinoff its gift-card subsidiary Blackhawk Network with an IPO next year, only months after saying that wasn’t in the cards. The plan, revealed in a short press release with scant details, calls for a minority stake to be sold in Blackhawk.

Shoppers found a mixed bag of bargains and so-so deals on Monday, as a day off for many Americans and warm, dry weather lured some out for what was likely to be the third busiest shopping day of the holiday season. Chains were also hoping that shoppers coming in to redeem the millions of gift cards given as presents might be willing to spend a bit more cash of their own.

My daughter participated in a Christmas gift exchange in her young-adult-usher ministry. Every teen but my daughter brought gift cards. She came with a movie to exchange. Her gift was not so popular. My, how times have changed. Forget the crazy-colored scarves or the overly bold-smelling lotion gift packs. The gift card is the go-to present when you don’t know what to get someone. My husband and I laughed that the teens could have put all the cards in a bowl and then selected the one each wanted.

Holiday procrastinators are preparing to zoom through picked-over stores, grabbing discounted sweaters and can't-go-wrong gift cards. If they can get a parking spot, that is.

Social networking website Facebook is dipping into the brick-and-mortar world by selling gift cards at retailer Target that can be used toward purchasing virtual products for games hosted on the site.

A letter carrier who has worked in this town for the past nine years has been charged with stealing cash, gift cards, debit and credit cards from the very mail she was paid to deliver, authorities said Wednesday.

Baltimore’s mayor was convicted Tuesday on a single charge she took gift cards intended for the city’s poor.

Mayor Sheila Dixon faces charges of theft and embezzlement amid accusations she used gift cards intended for needy families.