A Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers is a form of payment that can be used to make purchases at retail stores, gas stations, restaurants, and other locations. You load money onto the card, which you or the Brand Cards/Gift Voucher's recipient can then spend at accepted locations.
Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers can be open-loop or closed-loop. An open-loop Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers can be used anywhere that brand of card is accepted. For example, if you have a Brand Cards/Gift Voucher that's branded with the Visa logo, you could use it to make purchases anywhere Visa is accepted.
A closed-loop Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers, on the other hand, can only be used at specific merchants. For instance, if you purchase a Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers from Starbucks or Amazon, you or the Brand Cards/Gift Voucher's recipient would be able to use them to make purchases only at the retailer issuing the card .
Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers can be physical—meaning a plastic card—or digital. Digital Brand Card/Gift Vouchers have no physical form; instead, you're assigned a unique gift code number that you can use to redeem at online retailers when making purchases. Physical cards remain the most popular kind of Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers, but that is expected to change in the near future.3
Companies such as Amazon, Walmart, and Target allow consumers to purchase physical cards as well as to load online or digital accounts. Major restaurant chains, such as Starbucks, Chipotle, and Chili's, also offer customers digital and physical Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers. These cards make it convenient for customers to pay for their drinks and meals using an app or in-establishment card reader to speed up the checkout process.
You can also store codes for digital Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers inside a mobile wallet app, such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, or PayPal's Venmo. Then, when you're ready to check out, you can select your digital Brand Cards/Gift Voucher as your preferred method of payment.
Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers can offer a number of advantages. For example:
• They can be a good substitute form of payment if you'd rather not pay cash or use a credit card.
• Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers can be an appropriate gift for the holidays or any other special occasion.
• You can use Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers to control spending (helpful for avoiding bank overdrafts).
• They can be easy and convenient to use.
In terms of gift giving, Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers might be preferable if you have no idea what to buy for someone on your gift list, as they allow the recipient to buy what they want and when they want. Just keep in mind that if you're choosing closed-loop Brand Cards/Gift Vouchers over open-loop cards, that limits the giftee's options for where they can use the cards.
Source - Investopedia