Expensive Liquidation Options Aren’t Always Bad

There are several catch-all liquidation options in the hobby, for example, BravoPay/Famigo at effectively 3.5% cost. I’ve seen a few people leave a stack of gift cards on their desks for months at a time, waiting for a cheap liquidation option instead of cashing out with fees and moving on. I hate to remind you of the current state of the US economy, but a gift card left on your desk for five months is effectively costing you 3.5% or more anyway, so using a high-fee service to cash it out immediately can be a strategic decision.

There are a few other reasons you may want to use a high-fee liquidation option:

  • You have a card that doesn’t work at your normal liquidation channels, or is otherwise tainted in some way
  • You’re bed-ridden either due to sickness or extreme laziness and don’t want to go to the local grocery chain for a money order
  • You live in Manhattan and none of the popular, nationwide chains exist in your area
  • You’ve maximized your capacity to liquidate at lower cost, and you have more cards coming in than liquidation capacity going out (this sounds like a problem from a differential calculus textbook)
  • You’re earning at 12x and can easily afford 3.5% liquidation

What’s my point? High-fee liquidation can make sense and you should add it to your tool-bag for manufactured spend. Just don’t use it as a crutch to avoid probing for lower fee options, which generally do exist for essentially every type of card out there.

Pictured: Liquidating at 3.5% may not look good, but it can sure feel good.

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