[mlyle]

At Costco and other stores, you can often purchase gift cards for a bit below face value.

When Apple, Amazon, etc, seek to have retailers carry their gift cards, the retailer needs to have an incentive. So the gift cards are usually sold for below face value to the retailer. In turn, some retailers will sell gift cards for below their face value.

So, e.g., at this moment, Nintendo eShop $50 cards are $44.99; XBox/Sony Playstation $100 gift cards are $89.99; a $500 gift card on Alaska Airlines is $449.99; $100 at Hulu is $89.99.

These are not particularly good prices. Oftentimes Apple $100 gift cards will be $79.99.

The other incentives at Costco still hold, too; you can get the Executive Membership 2% back and the 2% credit card cash back.

[goblin89]

If I wanted to use a US content store and in fact lived in the US (which sounds like a prerequisite for being able to enjoy those Costco discounts), presumably I would not need to purchase gift cards in the first place.

Where gift cards are available, they are never cheaper than face value due to basic market dynamics.

In retail stores in non-Western countries I have never seen a gift card with e.g. 100 unit value sold for less than 100 units either, although I haven’t specifically looked for such.

[mlyle]

I didn't say you could go to Costco. Just that the market often values gift cards at less than par, because they are generally less useful than normal money.

In degenerate cases, I can see that the reverse could be true.