Are Gift Cards a Good Graduation Gift?

Graduations are exciting times in anyone’s life, and finding the right gift is a great way to celebrate the occasion! There are lots of amazing gifts out there, but as graduations often mark the transition from one era of life to another, monetary gifts are extra appreciated! They will always get some money from friends and family, making this the perfect time to spice it up with a gift card! 

There’s an amazing website called GiftYa that specializes in easily sending digital gift cards. Their format means they can be purchased and obtained on the phone, used as a code, or even swapped to a different merchant! Since they are kept on your cell phone, you don’t have to worry about the graduate misplacing the card or not having it with them when needed. Sending gift cards on GiftYa is an amazing Graduation gift. Speaking of great ways to purchase gift cards, let’s talk about Gift Card Granny!

Earn Cash Back on Gift Cards for Graduation with Gift Card Granny

Haven’t heard much about Gift Card Granny? No worries, we’ll get you caught up with the basics!

Gift Card Granny is the one-stop online retailer for all your gift card shopping needs. Save tons of money with our simple and easy cash-back system, allowing you to browse a collection of gift cards from national and local retailers that offer certain discounts depending on the amount you load onto any gift card. Delivery is a breeze, too. Get your gift card sent digitally or through the mail to wherever you need it to go, easy peasy. 

Now, let’s get on with the gift cards!

1. Uber 

Uber is a fantastic gift for graduates who are always on the move

Buy an Uber gift card

Uber has entrenched its position as a risk-free and expedient way to travel within cities all around the country. Not having to worry about getting behind the wheel is a great boon, especially when going out to dinner or any place you can get a drink. There is no need to worry about parking or someone scratching up your car. An Uber gift card will fund their next few trips around the city. Lots of people don’t have cars in college or just after college, and Uber is a great way for them to get where they need to go. 

Buy an Uber gift card

2. Uber Eats

Order food and so much more with Uber Eats

Buy an Uber Eats gift card

Uber Eats is a great site and app to use to get food delivered from plenty of different places and restaurants. However, Uber Eats is also very well known for delivering more than just food. People can use Uber Eats to order groceries from the grocery store, anything from any of the participating stores on the app, and of course delicious food. College students and college graduates are not known for their culinary fortitude, and a delicious and hot meal from a local restaurant is sometimes exactly what they need. Money-conscious graduates are also incentivized to treat themselves to a meal if they know it comes for free! 

 Buy an Uber Eats gift card

3. Dunkin’ Donuts

A gift card for coffee-lovers

Buy a Dunkin’ gift card

A gift card to Dunkin’ Donuts is a superb graduation gift. Dunkin Donuts is known for its coffee, but they have a lot of food and other drinks on their menu and we know every graduate out there has something they would love to get from Dunkin, even if it is just a few donuts! 

Buy a Dunkin’ gift card 

4. Chipotle

A gift card for a quick and filling meal

Get a Chipotle gift card.

To get a bit more specific in your food gift card we have Chipotle right here! Young graduates are frequent customers of this fast-food chain and for good reason. 

Their food is cheap, their service is fast, and it lets them enjoy a huge portion of rice and beans with their choice of toppings. Keep in mind, Chipotle is a fast-food Mexican restaurant. 

If you want to get a little more creative and you know the kind of food they like, check out the area nearby! There are usually some amazing taquerias and other fun local restaurants in every town. This works best, of course, if you know where they will be staying after graduation. One of the benefits of Chipotle or another big chain restaurant is that there are so many locations around the country that they can use this gift card no matter where they land. It is all up to you! If you aren’t sure, you can always ask. It does take a bit of the excitement out of the reveal, but a graduation gift card that they are excited to use is always a great gift.

Get a Chipotle gift card.

5. Macy’s

A gift card perfect for seasonal shopping

Buy a Macy’s gift card

A gift card to Macy’s lets graduates pick out a new stylish outfit for the next stage of their life. Coming into or out of college we’d wager there is some shopping on their minds, but clothes shopping gets rather expensive in the blink of an eye. This is what makes a gift card to Macy’s so good! Macy’s has a great selection of clothes in a wide variety of styles and a pretty substantial bath and body section. We are confident that every graduate has a shopping list that includes Macy’s somewhere. 

After graduation it is easy to stick to old clothing, preferring to save money for other parts of your life. Clothes shopping is all too often seen as a necessary evil or something to be avoided as long as possible. That’s where your gift card comes in. A Macy’s gift card eases a painful bill at the end of any shopping adventure and gives a little nudge to get out and pick out a new outfit that they will love. 

Buy a Macy’s gift card

6. Banana Republic

A gift card for paragons of style

Buy a Banana Republic gift card

There are a lot of amazing clothing stores out there. Some people might gravitate to Macy’s while others may be more interested in a place like the Banana Republic. A gift card to Banana Republic is a great way to give graduates some money for fantastic clothing options to spruce up their wardrobe. Banana Republic is on the expensive side, so we recommend making absolutely certain that they like shopping at this store. The only time that receiving a gift card is anything less than fantastic is if you know that you’ll have to do something you don’t love and spend money while doing it, which brings us to our second point. 

This is a gift card where joining in with some friends to pool money and get a higher-value gift card works exceptionally well. If your gift card covers the full price of one or a few pieces of clothing at Banana Republic it is a much safer gift, because even if they would not normally shop here, getting a few fantastic pieces of clothing entirely covered by this card is a really fun experience. 

Buy a Banana Republic gift card

7. Sephora

Get a gift card for quality beauty products

Buy a Sephora gift card

Graduations mark a momentous change in anyone’s life. Switching up a beauty routine is a great way to jump from high school to college or college to adulthood! If you know the graduate enjoys new makeup products or frequents Sephora, a gift card is a perfect incentive to pick out their perfect new look. There are Sephoras all over the country, making this a great card even if they move into a new city. 

Sephora is a fantastic place for all sorts of new makeup products. We recommend a gift card because it is very hard to know which product is on the graduate’s mind or which one they want to refill at the moment of their graduation. A gift card ensures they can step into the store, look around, and pick out the exact product that they want. 

Buy a Sephora gift card

8. Bed Bath and Beyond

A gift card for their new home

Buy a Bed Bath & Beyond gift card

Bed Bath and Beyond has a vast selection of items for daily use or decoration around their home. While not every graduate frequents this amazing store, we think they should! There are tons of great decorative products in this store that let graduates pick out candles, pillows, and more to spruce up their new place. Not all graduates have the continued cleanliness of their apartments in their minds. In the neverending list of things to keep track of — cleaning can easily fall by the wayside. Sometimes a fun new handsoap scent or a pack of all-purpose cleaning supplies is all they need to take a little extra care of their new space and get into a healthy cleaning routine. 

Alongside the rote cleaning items, Bed Bath and Beyond offers many decorations. Namely, candles. Candles do wonders to spruce up any house, filling it with warm light and a fantastically fragrant smell. 

A gift card graduation gift lets the graduate decide what kind of products they want to populate their home. They will need cleaning and self-care products, and there are a lot of varieties from which to choose. A gift card lets them make that choice leisurely, and that’s a great situation. 

Bed Bath and Beyond is an excellent choice when giving a gift card to a nurse. Start earning cash back at Gift Card Granny when you pick up a Bed Bath and Beyond gift card today.

Are Gift Cards Good Graduation Gifts?

Absolutely! Gift cards are our favorite graduation gifts because it lets the recipient pick out an item or go do a thing that they would not ordinarily do. They can ease the financial burden of moving to the next stage of their life by allaying some of the necessary purchases that come with their graduation with a gift card. We want their graduation to be a time of stress-free celebration, and a gift card is a great way to show your appreciation and excitement. We hope that these recommendations have helped you zone in on the perfect gift card for the graduate. If not, you can always reach out to their family and see what gifts are a good bet for them! A little chat with someone who knows them well can go a long way in allowing you to cross items off your list and bring you closer to the right one. 

Graduates are in a pretty significant state of flux. Depending on their graduation, they are either going out to college or stepping into the workforce. More often than not this includes a move to a new place and perhaps going from a student to a professional. There are many avenues to take gift giving, and all of them help the graduate settle into their new environment. If you know they will spend some time at home after graduation, make sure to tailor your gift card appropriately. We recommend leaning towards one that lets them go out and do something exciting like going out to eat or trying a new activity, but at the end of the day, it is all up to you!

Remember: many of the retailers on this list are available at Gift Card Granny, where you can earn cashback and rewards on all of your gift card purchases. 

From all of us here at Gift Card Granny, happy shopping!