Your must have a current agreement to accept Discover Card as a form of payment in order to participate in the Gift Card program.  You can call a Discover Account Executive at 1-800-347-6673 if you do not accept Discover.  A representative will be happy to assist you and arrange for you to accept the Gift Card and the Discover Credit Card.

You agree to accept the Gift Card as a method of payment for goods and services provided to the cardholder, following all the standard rules and instructions for accepting Discover Card transactions.  Discover or your Discover processor will pay you for these transactions.  You will be charged by your processor, based on your agreement, for your transactions along with all of your Discover credit card transactions. 

Depending upon how your program is set up, only merchant locations within your property can participate in the Gift Card program.  This card cannot be used at merchants not associated with your property.

You should swipe the Gift Card as a credit card.  DO NOT USE THE "GIFT CARD" BUTTON/FUNCTION ON YOUR REGISTER, as this is set up for your store gift card only!

How you handle returned items is your decision.  You can choose to give cash back or issue an "In-Store Only" voucher or other form of a store credit.

You should advise the cardholder to contact Customer Service or Management if:

• The card's magnetic stripe does not work.
• The date the card is presented is beyond the "active thru" date.

In most cases, the management staff can transfer the available balance to a new card or access the available balance through an Internet web application.

As a customer convenience, you may wish to call the toll-free number on the back of the card to obtain the card balance for your customer.  Just follow the voice prompts.  Be aware a fee may be assessed to the balance of the customer's card.

Authorization Code: The authorization code returned on your terminal and on the receipt (if available based on your equipment) is the remaining Gift Card balance.  If there are not enough funds to cover the purchase, the authorization code will come back as "decline."  When there are no remaining funds on the card, the authorization code will come back as zeros and one (000001).

Split tender transactions should be performed if the cardholder recognizes the total amount of the sale exceeds the available balance on the card.  Ask the customer for the exact value remaining on the card.  The salesperson should then ask the customer how they want to cover the balance of the transaction (i.e. the amount over the balance left on their gift card).  The sales associate would then essentially pay down the transaction balance to the amount left on the card.  Next they would swipe the gift card as a Discover credit card on their credit card equipment.  Merchants should not use the "Gift Card" button on their registers as these are typically programmed for the merchant's internal gift cards.

Restaurants and other merchants that routinely include gratuity can accept the Gift Card.  Cardholders do not understand that most credit card authorizations for these types of merchants add 15-40% to the bill total in application of the customer adding the gratuity to the total bill.  Remind your customers who wish to use their Gift Card to consider this when declining if the card's remaining balance will cover the transaction, including tip.