Gift cards. Some people love them, and other people hate them. To whatever group you belong to, you still might want to transfer your Mastercard gift card money to your bank account. But is that possible?
One of the best and easiest ways of transferring a gift card balance to your bank account is by using Venmo. You’ll first have to register your gift card online and then add it to Venmo as a payment method.
Transfer Amazon Gift Card Balance to a Bank Account?
There’s currently no way to transfer your Amazon gift card balance directly to your bank account. Venmo, Cash App, and others don’t support store-name gift cards but only brand-name ones (Mastercard, Visa).
Your only option is to use a website such as cardcash.com or giftcash.com and sell your Amazon gift card and have the amount transferred to your bank account.
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There’s a catch, a big one. The amount that these websites payout is not so high for Amazon gift cards. For instance, on Gift Cash, if you want to exchange a $50 Amazon gift card, you will only get $37.50 for it.
That’s a whopping 25% cut that they’re taking. You’re better off using the gift card to buy things from Amazon, as it was intended.
How to Transfer Mastercard Gift Card Balance to Bank Account
To transfer money on your Mastercard gift card to your bank account, we’ll be using Venmo.
If you don’t know what Venmo is, it’s an extremely popular mobile payments app that’s owned by PayPal. We will use it to transfer the Mastercard gift card balance to our linked bank account.
You can add, not only a Mastercard gift card, but also different debit, credit, and prepaid Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover branded cards that are registered under your name. This last part is important.
How to register your Mastercard Gift Card
We need to register the Mastercard gift card in order for this process to work. We’ll go to the website listed on the back of the gift card – www.prepaidgiftbalance.com. This will enable the card for online payments and purchases and not only in-store.
How to Open a Venmo Account
So, how do we open a Venmo account if we don’t already have one? It’s easy. Here’s how:
- Download the Venmo app
- Open it
- Choose a personal or a business account
- Tap on “Sign Up”
- Enter your phone number
- Enter the code you got
- Add your first and last name
- Choose a username
- Enter your email and create a password
- Check the box
- Agree to terms and conditions
- Sync phone or Facebook contacts, or skip
- Set your payment visibility to private
READ ALSO: 5 Simple Ways to Transfer Visa Gift Card to Bank Account
How to add the Gift Card to Venmo
After we open a Venmo account, we can now add our Mastercard gift card. At the time of writing this article, some cards may be denied by the card issuer or Venmo.
The process of adding your gift card, or a debit or credit card is the same and includes the following steps:
- Open the Venmo app
- Tap on the profile icon in the lower right corner
- Tap on the Settings button (Gear icon)
- Tap on “Payment Methods”
- Tap “Card”
- Enter the card number, expiration date, CVV
- Add your ZIP code
- Tap “Add”
You can now choose to transfer your funds from the gift card via Venmo to your bank account. You will need to add a bank account or a debit card to Venmo, so you can transfer the funds. Simply follow the same steps outlined above to do it.
There are two ways of transferring money from Venmo to a bank account. Standard money transfer that will take a couple of days and is free and an instant transfer that will cost you 1.75% (with a minimum fee of $0.25 and a maximum fee of $25) of the transfer amount.
How to Transfer the Money to a Bank Account
To transfer your Venmo balance to a bank account or a debit card, we first need to link the two together.
To add your bank account or a debit card to Venmo, open the Venmo app and:
- Open the “Me” tab (profile picture or initials)
- Tap on Settings (gear icon)
- Tap on “Payment Methods”
- Tap on “Add bank or card”
- Follow the easy instructions
Venmo recommends that you verify your bank account information to successfully transfer the funds. You have two choices – instant verification or microtransfers.
Instant verification is the easier and faster method where you will input your bank’s login credentials into Plaid to connect and verify the bank account.
We can now transfer funds to our bank account. Open the Venmo app and:
- Go to the “Me” tab
- Tap the “Add or Transfer” button
- Enter or edit the amount you want to transfer to your bank
- Tap “Instant” or “1-3 Biz Days”
- Select your preferred bank account or debit card
- Confirm your transfer details
- Tap the green “Transfer” button
READ NEXT: How to Transfer Money from VISA Gift Card to PayPal
Can you add Mastercard Gift Card to Cash App?
If you don’t have a Venmo account already and you don’t want to open one, you can alternatively use Cash App.
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Cash App supports debit and credit cards from Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and Discover. You can also add most prepaid cards, however, you can’t make deposits to them.
Mastercard gift cards belong to prepaid cards. That’s why you can add them to Cash App in a process that is similar to that of Venmo.
To add a Mastercard gift card to Cash App, you simply:
- Open Cash App
- Tap on the profile icon in the top right corner
- Tap on “Linked Banks” or “Add Bank”
- Tap on “Link Bank”
- Enter your debit card number
- Enter your card’s expiration date
- Enter CVV
- Enter ZIP code
But, what if you don’t have a Cash App account? How do you get one? You first need to download the app from your app store. You then simply enter your phone number and follow the prompts. The whole process is finished in less than five minutes.
Here’s how:
- Download the Cash App
- Launch it
- Enter your phone number or an email address
- Enter the secret code via text or email
- Choose a unique $Cashtag
- Enter your zip code
READ ALSO: How to Transfer Amazon Pay Balance to a Bank Account
Conclusion
Gift card balance can be easily transferred to your bank account by using a mobile payments app such as Venmo or Cash App. That way, you will get the whole amount in your bank account because there’s no middleman taking a hefty cut.
Adrian Volenik is a fintech enthusiast who loves testing and reviewing digital banking apps and financial products in general.
How many digital banking accounts can one man have?
Not enough, if you ask Adrian. As his wallet will soon explode if he doesn’t cut back on the number of cards.