Can You Use A Walmart Gift Card To Buy Another Gift Card? (2023 Update)

Walmart is one of the largest brands on the planet, and carry tens of thousands of different items within each store.

While there are certainly plenty of things to spend a gift card balance on, sometimes you may want to exchange it for a different gift card instead.

Therefore, you may be wondering – can you buy gift cards at Walmart using a Walmart gift card?

In this article, we’ll cover everything that you need to know!

Can You Buy Other Gift Cards With Walmart Gift Cards?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Walmart does not allow you to purchase other gift cards using Walmart gift cards, both online and in-stores.

This includes both prepaid Visa / Mastercard gift cards, as well as gift cards to other stores.

While you can still pay for most other items in your purchase using a gift card, you will need to use an alternate payment method to pay for additional gift cards separately.

Additionally, in some states you may be able to redeem your remaining gift card balance for cash. More information about this will be discussed later in this article.

Why Doesn’t Walmart Allow This?

It’s a shame that Walmart doesn’t allow you to purchase other gift cards, using Walmart gift cards. If you think about why they’ve made this decision however, it sort of makes sense.

Gift cards on their own really don’t make a lot of money for Walmart. This especially holds true for Visa gift cards, where the margin is practically non-existent.

Let’s be honest – Walmart isn’t making a lot of money selling a $100 Visa gift card to you for $100. They also have credit card processing fees that they have to pay with each transaction at their stores.

On the other hand, most of the other products at Walmart do make Walmart at least a little bit of money. Walmart isn’t known to have particularly high margins on most of their products, but at least they’re making something.

The real value of Walmart gift cards isn’t only that you’re locked into purchasing stuff from their stores, but that shoppers spend more lavishly when shopping with gift cards vs. cash. They’re more likely to buy things they otherwise wouldn’t, and spend more money – even more then the value of their gift card.

Not to mention, some people will buy the gift card and never use it.

By simply allowing shoppers to purchase other gift cards instead, Walmart stands to lose a lot – making the original purchase of the gift card quite pointless for everyone.

Can You Redeem Walmart Gift Cards For Cash?

We now know that you can’t purchase other gift cards (like Visa gift cards, or gift cards to other stores) using Walmart gift cards.

But is there any way to simply redeem the gift card for cash instead?

Yes and no.

Typically, this is something Walmart avoids, so they only do it if they legally have to.

In California for example, retailers legally have to provide cash for your gift card balance if the remaining balance is under $10. 

Currently, the list of states that allow you to redeem gift cards for cash include:

• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Maine
• Massachusetts
• Montana
• New Jersey
• Oregon
• Rhode Island
• Vermont
• Washington

As noted earlier, Walmart will only honor what is legally required by law, and the exact laws can vary from state-to-state. Usually, you won’t be able to redeem your full gift card balance unless it’s under a certain amount. So, you will still need to spend most of it before you can get the remainder with cash.

Note that if the cost of the items you plan on purchasing exceed your gift card balance, you can pay using your gift card and pay the remainder through an alternate payment method.

Does Buying An Item And Returning It For Cash Work?

While talking with other people online, some people had a rather clever idea.

The premise is that you use the gift card to purchase something expensive, but is commonly returned. Then, after purchasing the item using the gift card, you end up taking it back to Walmart to return it for cash.

Seems straightforward, right?

Unfortunately, this strategy no longer works. While it does appear that this sort of thing worked in the past, Walmart has caught onto this and have taken steps to prevent it from happening.

Now, if you try to return an item that was purchased with a gift card, Walmart will issue the credit to a new gift card instead. Yes, you can still return the item, but you’ll essentially end up right back where you started.

Walmart is a multi-billion dollar company, and they have seen it all. There is no longer any way to ‘game the system’, and get around their gift card policy.