This past Sunday, August 22, certain changes relating to gift cards went into effect thanks to the Credit CARD Act of 2009. Now @ MPL highlights some of the changes:
Store gift cards and gift cards with a Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover brand logo sold on or after August 22, 2010 will be good for at least five years from the date the card is purchased. You can still be charged inactivity fees, but only if you haven’t used your card for at least one year. Additionally, if the physical card expires before the five years is up you can get the balance transferred to a replacement card for free. For more details see the complete list of new rules for gift cards from the Federal Reserve Website.
There are also new credit card rules that went into effect this week. And in case you missed it, in February of this year there was another set of new credit card rules.