Travel Gift Cards: How They Work and Which Type to Give

Travel gift cards are prepaid cards that pay for flights, hotels, tours and other trip costs, and the type you choose decides how much freedom the recipient gets. A single-brand card suits someone loyal to one airline or hotel group, while a choice card suits someone whose plans you don’t know.

TL;DR

• A travel gift card holds a fixed balance that the recipient spends on the issuer’s own booking channel, and it comes in five types: airline, hotel chain, stay-booking, multi-brand travel and recipient-choice cards.
• Give a single-brand card, such as Delta or Marriott, when you know the traveler’s airline or hotel group, and a multi-brand or choice card when you don’t.
• Before you buy, check the card’s country, how many cards fit in one booking, what it can’t pay for and whether it expires, because gift cards are country-specific and each issuer sets its own limits.
• If you don’t know where the traveler is going, a Giftronaut Choice Card lets them pick the brand, country and currency at redemption, and you can narrow the catalog to Travel & Outdoors.

Say your colleague Maya is retiring in May and you want to send her off with a trip. You don’t know whether she’ll fly Delta, rent a cabin or book a stay on Airbnb. You can guess and hope, or you can pick a card that doesn’t depend on your guess.

Which card fits depends on details most buying guides skip, like how many cards a hotel site accepts per booking and which countries a card works in. We pulled those details from the product pages in Giftronaut’s US catalog in October 2026, so you can compare real cards instead of categories.

How do travel gift cards work?

A travel gift card holds a fixed balance. At checkout, the recipient enters the card number and PIN (or a code) on the issuer’s booking site, and the balance comes off the total. If the booking costs more than the card, they pay the difference another way.

Where the card is spent depends on the brand. Giftronaut’s travel rewards are redeemed on the brand’s own site, such as tripgift.com, airlinegift.com or flystaygift.com. Stay and experience rewards go through sites such as hotelsgiftcard.com and bucketlistgift.com, and tours and car rentals through toursgift.com and rentacargift.com.

For a gift sent through Giftronaut, the path looks like this:

1. Choose the card and amount. Every product has its own minimum and maximum value.
2. Send it. The recipient gets a reward email from Team Giftronaut and clicks the redemption link.
3. They verify once. A one-time email verification opens the redemption page, where a Choice Card recipient picks the brand.
4. They redeem. The code goes in at the brand’s checkout and the balance is applied.

That makes last-minute gifting realistic. In Giftronaut data from September 2026, covering 45,162 redeemed rewards, 51.6% were redeemed within one day of being sent.

What types of travel gift cards can you give?

Think of a single-brand card as a reservation at one restaurant, and a multi-brand card as a pass to the whole food court. Both work, as long as you match them to the person eating.

Prepaid Visa and Mastercard rewards are the open-loop alternative. The Global Visa Reward Card can be used in 225 countries and the Swype Global Virtual Mastercard in 202. Neither is tied to a travel brand, so the recipient decides what to book.

How much can you put on a travel gift card?

Every product has its own minimum and maximum, so there’s no single range for travel cards. The chart shows the range for nine US cards in Giftronaut’s catalog in October 2026.

Six of the nine top out at $500. Best Western and the Viator experiences card go to $1,000, and TripGift’s multi-brand card goes to $5,000 with a $100 minimum, so it’s the one to look at for a larger gift. What a card can hold is only half the question, though. The other half is how much of it fits in one booking.

Which travel gift card fits which traveler?

Not sure which row your person is? That usually points to the last one.

What should you check before you buy a travel gift card?

These details aren’t on the front of the card, and they decide whether the gift works on the day.

• Where it can be used. Gift cards are country-specific and can’t be redeemed in another country, even when the brand is the same. The US Airbnb card is redeemable by U.S. residents only, and Giftronaut lists Airbnb as separate country-specific products.
• How many cards fit in one booking. Hotels.com takes one card per online booking, though cards can be combined into one of up to $2,000 on its balance transfer page. The Global Hotel Card Powered by Expedia takes up to four cards per reservation, TripGift two codes per transaction, and delta.com up to five forms of payment per transaction.
• What the card can’t pay for. Delta’s card can’t cover baggage fees, upgrades or premium seats once the ticket is bought. Hotels.com cards don’t work for bookings paid at the hotel, made by phone, or bundled into hotel-plus-flight packages.
• What happens when the trip costs more. Southwest, Hotels.com, TripGift and the Expedia-powered card all let the recipient pay the remainder another way.
• Whether it expires. Most Giftronaut gift cards don’t carry an expiration date, and where a validity period applies it’s most commonly 12 months, set by the issuing brand. Airbnb and Southwest balances don’t expire. TripGift cards expire 12 months after issuance, with some country exceptions, and they don’t expire for North American residents. Giftronaut’s reward link has a standard 180-day redemption window, and once the recipient redeems, the brand’s own terms apply.

How do Giftronaut Choice Cards and branded cards work for travel?

A Giftronaut Choice Card is the answer to “I don’t know where they’re going.” You set the amount, and the recipient picks from 4,300+ brands, choosing the country and currency at redemption. They see products issued for their own country.

• Narrow it to travel. When you set up an order, you can filter the catalog by category, such as Travel & Outdoors, by country, or down to individual brands. The filters apply to that order only.
• Let them split it. A recipient can split one Choice Card across more than one brand instead of putting everything on one.
• Skip the location question. You don’t need to know where the recipient lives, and we reach 225 countries.
• Make it personal. Add your logo, sender name, subject line, message and colors, using a ready-made template or your own.
• Or choose the brand yourself. A Branded Card works the other way: you pick the brand when you place the order, such as a Delta or Marriott card.

Here’s the catch. Once a recipient confirms a Choice Card selection, it’s redeemed and can’t be changed or exchanged for a different brand, and that brand’s own terms take over. If you want to see what your recipient will see, send yourself a sample Choice Card. It’s for demonstration only and can’t be redeemed for value.

Are travel gift cards a good reward for employees and clients?

They can be, when the trip is the point: a milestone, a record quarter, a send-off like Maya’s. Say a sales team of 40 earns a $250 travel reward. That’s $10,000 to fund.

A credit card deposit adds Giftronaut’s 3% processing fee, which is $300 on $10,000, and is typically processed almost instantly during U.S. business hours. ACH and wire carry no funding fee, but ACH takes 2 to 5 business days and wire 1 to 2. So the choice is fee against speed. Fund by ACH early if you can plan ahead, and by card only when the deadline won’t wait.

Your account has to be pre-funded before any order goes out, and the minimum deposit is $100. Standard gift cards and prepaid cards carry no redemption fee unless the brand’s own terms say otherwise. For a team, bulk sending works from a spreadsheet upload: choose a Choice Card or a specific brand, add your logo and message, then send right away or schedule it.

Match the card to what you know about the trip

Back to Maya. If you know she flies Delta, send the Delta card and she’ll thank you for the shortcut. If all you know is that she’d rather decide for herself, send a card that lets her. Either way, check the country, the booking limits and the expiry before you buy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can one travel gift card pay for both a flight and a hotel?

It depends on the card. An airline card pays only for that airline’s flights (Delta’s also covers Delta Vacations packages that include Delta airfare), and a hotel card only for stays. A multi-brand card such as TripGift covers more, with airlines, hotels and car rental providers listed on its product page, and a Giftronaut Choice Card can be split across brands.

Do travel gift cards expire?

Most don’t. Most Giftronaut gift cards carry no expiration date, and where a validity period applies it’s most commonly 12 months, set by the issuing brand. Airbnb and Southwest balances don’t expire, while TripGift cards expire 12 months after issuance, with exceptions by country, and cards for North American residents don’t expire.

Can I use a travel gift card for part of a booking?

Yes. On Southwest, Hotels.com, TripGift and the Expedia-powered Global Hotel Card, the recipient applies the card and pays the remainder another way. Card limits differ: Hotels.com takes one card per booking, the Expedia-powered card four, and TripGift two codes per transaction.

Can I send a travel gift card to someone in another country?

Yes, but a single-brand card is tied to its country. Gift cards can’t be redeemed in another country, even for the same brand, so a Choice Card is the safer route: the recipient picks their country and currency at redemption. We reach 225 countries, and access is blocked from 12 US-sanctioned countries.

Can I personalize a travel gift card?

Yes. On a Giftronaut Choice Card you can personalize the sender name, subject line, message, logo and colors, using a ready-made template or your own. With White Label, your brand carries through redemption with no Giftronaut branding.

Can a company send travel gift cards to employees in bulk?

Yes. Upload a spreadsheet of recipients, choose a Choice Card or a specific brand, add your logo and message, and send right away or schedule delivery. The account must be pre-funded first, and credit card funding carries a 3% processing fee while ACH and wire do not.

What travel gift card should I give if I don’t know where the recipient is going?

Give a card that doesn’t commit to a brand. A Giftronaut Choice Card lets the recipient pick the brand, country and currency at redemption, and you can limit the catalog to Travel & Outdoors. A multi-brand travel card such as TripGift is the other option, though it’s spent only on its own booking site.