Check your junk drawer — a new survey shows Americans have unspent gift cards totaling about $21 billion

Almost two-thirds of Americans are holding on to at least one unredeemed gift card.

Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

• About 60% of Americans have at least one unredeemed gift card, per a Credit Summit survey of 1,200 people. 
• This amounts to about $21 billion in unredeemed gift card credits collectively.
• More than one-third of survey respondents are saving the cards for special occasions.

Gift cards are an easy solution during the holiday season, but a lot of it — almost $21 billion — goes unspent, according to a December survey by Credit Summit, an online financial advice website. 

"Gift cards are popular, but for some reason, Americans seem reluctant to cash them in," wrote Rebecca Stumpf, the website's vice president of editorial and public relations.

About 60%, or almost two-thirds of the respondents to Credit Summit's survey of 1,200 Americans aged 16 and older said they are holding on to at least one unredeemed gift card. Most of those hanging onto unredeemed gift cars are between 18 to 24 years old. Nearly 85% of respondents said they have at least one unspent gift card.

But more than one-third, or 36.4% of survey respondents say they are saving the gift cards for a special occasion, while 23% of them say they are waiting until they need something from the particular retailer. Over half, or 55% of survey respondents said their unredeemed gift cards were worth $200 or less.

Credit Summit is urging people to use their gift cards — otherwise, they should regift or resell them.

"There's no real advantage to saving them, and the accrued value of unredeemed cards shows that the longer people hang onto them, the higher the risk that the card will be lost, or the value reduced due to fees or inflation," wrote Stumpf.

Some states also allow "inactivity fees" can be charged if a card hasn't been used in a year, which means people may actually lose money if they save the cards for a special occasion, Credit Summit noted.

"When these cards go unredeemed, there's only one big winner: The companies that issue them," Stumpf wrote.

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