Ah, summer! The calendar says it’s not quite here yet, but it feels like it already is. I’m just loving the sunshine we’ve been getting in San Francisco, yet it’s certainly making me want to take a few trips and explore what the rest of the country has to offer during this spectacular season. Traveling is a monetary investment and can be a blow to anyone’s budget. Luckily, discount gift cards from Cardpool can help you save money on your transportation and travel essentials.

Make sure to fuel up with our discount gas gift cards. Cardpool carries BP discount gift cards, which may be used not only on gas, but on food and drinks as well.

No matter where you go and how you reach your destination, you’ll definitely want to supplies at drugstores or department stores so use your Target discount gift cards. You’re bound to see one of those stores during your travels, and they’re THE spots you’ll need to hit to stock up on snacks and quick meals, toiletries, clothes, and other basics.

By taking advantage of discount gift cards from these merchants and others, you’ll be able to leave the stress of extra planning and budgeting behind and focus more on relaxation and having fun. Treat yourself with the fabulous discounts and get the bigger break you deserve!

As April is quickly dwindling away, I have realized that I need to shed my winter layers and start day-dreaming about what I am going to wear for the spring and summer seasons. With all the rain, sleet, and snow this past winter I (as I’m sure many, many others) am anxiously waiting to shed the parka and flannel for a pair of shorts and some sunscreen. But after browsing awhile on the internet, I am quickly realizing that my spring cleaning of my closet (and makeup drawer) may be an expensive endeavor.

‘Tis the season to salute class of 2012! Congratulate your graduate with a sweet discount gift card at any one of our featured retailers and you’ll be sure to motivate them to use that education for good!

Maybe they would like to take a trip to release all that book related stress? We sell discount bedandbreakfast.com gift cards at a whopping 17% off! Don’t worry, you can also put them on the direct flight of their choice using a discount Southwest Airline gift card of 3% off.

On the other hand, maybe your favorite graduate just wants to chill out? Provide them with effortless entertainment with gift cards discounted up to 17% off from such shops as Best Buy, Game Stop, Barnes & Noble, the Apple Store, FYE and more!

It’s not too early to start preparing for Mother’s Day. Outshine all of your siblings, or mom’s friends’ kids by thinking ahead!

You were always mother’s favorite weren’t you?! Return the love and make mom feel special this year with TIffany’s discount gift cards and saving  7% off on that gift you were going to buy her!

Is your Mom more handy and less fancy? Give her the gift to indulge her hobbies at any one of our home improvement or craft stores with discount Home Depot gift cards.  She’ll think of you as she proudly completes her special project :)

Spring is finally here which means wedding season is now upon us. If you’re like me, you often get invited to weddings from distant cousins, high school friends and co-workers. Although you may think the hardest part is finding a suitable date that friends and family won’t pry too hard into, the hardest part is finding the appropriate gift.

You probably have one in your wallet right now, but do you know anything about it? These days gift cards are so commonly used that it’s easy to forget that less than 20 years ago they didn’t exist. The invention of the gift card has given rise to a revolution that has swept across the world, creating new and easier ways for people to give gifts and buy merchandise and services. Here’s a list of 6 things you probably didn’t know about the product that has changed the way we all shop.

1. Gift cards were first created by SSI Technologies in 1995 to be sold by Blockbuster, which  became the first merchant to sell gift cards in their stores. Today, virtually every major merchant in the U.S. now offers gift cards, and SSI Technologies remains a major producer of plastic cards of all kinds.

2. In a January 2007 National Retail Federation survey, 79.7% of consumers reported that they are planning to buy at least one gift card during the following holiday season.

3. There are two major kinds of gift cards: open loop and closed loop. Open loop cards are cards that are accepted in a wide variety of locations, such as cards issued by Mastercard American Express, and Visa. Closed loop gift cards are cards that are issued by a specific merchant and can only be used in those merchants’ stores. Cardpool allows you to buy gift cards and sell gift cards that are closed loop gift cards.

4. According to the research firm TowerGroup, there are $41 billion in gift cards that haven’t been used since 2005. The same firm also estimated $8 billion in unredeemed gift card value in 2007 alone. Thanks to companies like Cardpool, that number is falling, accumulating to about $2 billion in 2011.

5. In 2009, President Obama signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act, targeting both the credit card and gift card industries. On the gift card side, the Act prohibited merchants from charging fees on a gift card unless the card has been inactive for at least 12 months. The Act also prohibited the sale of cards that expire less than five years from the issuing date or from the date that funds were last added to the card.

6. According to the National Retail Federation, gift cards were the most requested gift for the holidays in 2007, 2008, and 2009. In a 2008 NRF Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, it was reported that 54.9% of consumers wanted to receive a gift card during the holiday season.

One of the longstanding rituals of spring is caused by the realization that the space we live in has become a bizarre and disastrous mess. And there’s company coming. Guests this weekend. Family coming to visit. Sets of judgmental eyes gazing skeptically at all the piles of unkempt stuff. It’s the season to clean up and get presentable again.

A lot of the stuff that emerges from the forgotten heap of winter is best tossed away, recycled, or donated, but some of the stuff you’ll find has serious value. For example, it turns out this wasn’t the winter you learned to ski. Or snowboard. Or play the ukelele to all your new friends gathered ’round the fireplace at the ski lodge. Noble dreams, sure. But sometimes they don’t pan out. Spring cleaning is the time to cut your losses and get some hard cash from the clutter. Get something you can use, because after all, there’s no reason for a valuable ukelele to sit around wasted.

As the cleaning progresses and you’re finally excavating that pile of envelopes on the kitchen counter, keep in mind this idea about getting the hard cash you use bcause you might come across some gift cards from the recent holiday season. Gift cards you don’t personally need. Gift cards that even as you opened them last December you thought to yourself “Mmm. Okay. This is great. But why couldn’t they have just gotten me cash?” Yeah, those gift cards. You didn’t get around to spending them in the last two months, and the next ten aren’t looking good either. It happens. But there’s no reason to let them sit around wasted. So what to do? Well, as part of your spring cleaning this year, get the cash you wanted. Sell gift cards for cash at Cardpool and reap the rewards of your mess.

For those spring cleaners whose process is more of an industrial undertaking, Cardpool is still a great resource. We regularly have a thorough selection of discount Home Depot gift cards or discount Lowe’s gift cards to make your home improvement project a financially reasonable enterprise. If all you need is some additional storage or a bit more organization, check out a gift card from home furnishers like Pier 1 Imports and Crate & Barrel or department retailers like JCPenney and Macy’s. The gift card that turned up on someone else’s kitchen counter might come in perfectly handy for your own project. Buying or selling, let Cardpool help make this spring cleaning process bearable, and maybe even profitable!

Let’s face it: you probably aren’t going to win the Mach Madness pool this year either. It’s going to be your co-worker’s girlfriend who picks teams based on their mascot’s cuteness rating, a completely unscientific number that she whimsically assigns, finishing her bracket before you’ve made your first pick. Her accuracy, however, is consistent and unbelievable. Borderline surgical. And the fact that she forgets she entered a bracket until having won is totally unnerving. Connecticut’s way-too-adorable-looking Husky with its protruding pink tongue (as if taunting you, specifically) is going to rob you of another twenty bucks this year. No matter how diligently you’ve been following the Sports section or internalizing the TV commentator’s analysis, you will undoubtedly lose. There’s nothing you can do.

The loss of this money is inevitable, but March Madness doesn’t have to be a financial drain. There are steps you can take to recoup the funds. And yes, it has to do with discount gift cards. First off, check out our Sports Authority gift cards, which give you 16% discounts on NCAA team gear (visit Sport Authority’s Fan Shop for a tour of their selection).  Next, if you’re playing host to the televised games, consider the gear you’re watching it on. There’s a load of worthwhile technology that can make each game a little louder, a little brighter, and a little bit more like being in the arena. See our discount gift cards to Best Buy and Sears to make that technology an affordable investment for this year’s March Madness.

When it’s time to gather around the TV and tune into the racket of games, make sure you have the right supplies at the right price. I’m talking about food: chips, salsa, the works. The food can make each game a positive experience even if the outcome damages your bracket. Several of the merchants on Cardpool can help offset the cost. Try gift cards from Whole Foods or shop the grocery aisle at a local Target, Kmart, or Walmart. You can recoup your pool’s entry fee using Cardpool, or better yet, make your pool’s entry fee a discounted gift card (for some reason it’s less agonizing to part with a  plastic card than it is with cash). The goal through all of this is to make the big tournament’s end result (you getting helplessly destroyed in your bracket) significantly less devastating than last year and you being able to continue through March in a salvaged psychological state. Cardpool can help.

And when in doubt, pick the team with the puppy mascot.

When it comes to movies, it’s hard for me to keep up. Enticing new trailers are on television every week. Some friend is always gushing about the film they just saw, how undeniably incredible it was. On top of that, there’s a whole century of old movies I still have to catch up on. Plus, when I finally do go see a movie, before it even starts there’s twenty minutes of more trailers featuring more movies which also look dramatic and appealing and I’ll have to go see those too (and preceding each of those: more trailers featuring more movies, and so on and so forth). In mathematics, this is known as an exponential curve, where each number features another littler number tagging along, and the little number looks so innocent and cute, but plot it on a graph and you get this ridiculous rocketing line that eventually just shoots straight up. The calculations are pretty exhausting. That’s how it can feel wading through the slush of new films. But fear not. The Academy Awards have come and gone and validated the movies I should be watching.

The all-knowing panel of big-shot movie people is here to tell us which of this year’s movies are worth our hard-earned dollars. The enormous slush gets narrowed down to a simple list of five. Five movies. Excuse me? Ten? It’s ten movies now? Okay, so now it’s ten movies. A simple list of ten movies to spend your hard-earned dollars on. And it’s that time of the year. The list is out. Personally, I haven’t seen a single one. I keep intending to see them all, but never even got started. Ticket prices are so high, and there’s no guarantee of a quality experience.

Luckily, the Oscar process has claimed to take care of the latter dilemma by vouching for which of the year’s movies are truly great. The only thing left is getting to the theater and buying a ticket, and there’s hope here too: discount gift cards. Cardpool regularly stocks a selection of gift cards to Fandango, a partner of several national theaters, and AMC Theaters gift cards and Regal Theaters gift cards, who have screens all over the country. Using Cardpool you can get your movie tickets at discounts of between 9% and 18%. Seeing those best-of-the-year movies is extremely easy. Better yet, AMC Theaters has a Best Picture Showcase the weekends leading up to the Oscars (http://go.amctheatres.com/bps), so if you’d like, you can see all those great movies back-to-back-to-back-to-back. It’s finally possible to keep up, or at least catch up, and keep that crazy curve in its place.