There’s something about gift cards that I just love, especially from stores that I want gift cards from.  When you get to grab a gift card for FREE, it is a magical feeling.  I feel that gift cards give you permission to treat yourself or treat your family without feeling guilty about spending the money.  This is why I love to get free gift cards in Canada.

To be honest, I wouldn’t feel as good about being gifted $10 in cash as I do about being gifted $10 in a gift card (to a store that I shop at often).  The $10 in cash gets squirrelled away somewhere, but the $10 in gift card dollars gets saved for a special occasion or used more thoughtfully than the $10 cash.  That’s how I roll with gift card gifts, anyway.

Here are 5 easy ways to get free gift cards in Canada:

Paytm Canada

Paytm Canada is a mobile payment and commerce platform.  Paytm is a payment processor.  Paytm a mobile app that supports peer-to-peer payments, earn cash back rewards, and pay bills with no fees.  They are a Money Services Business which allows consumers the ability to pay for utility bills, property taxes or city taxes, electricity bills online.

Recently as of November 2019, they announced they will be charging convenience fee for using a credit card to pay for your utility bills, property taxes, or city taxes (1.75%).  Prior to this, using a Mastercard was free.  You could get one Paytm reward point for every $1 paid through Paytm.  You also get bonuses for signing up, for verifying your account, and for paying three different bills in one month, etc.

5000 Paytm points are equivalent to a $5 gift card.

Some of the gift cards available are:

• Holt Renfrew
• Amazon.ca
• Starbucks
• Tim Hortons
• Cineplex
• The Keg
• The Bay
• Ikea

Amazon.ca Paytm Reward:

• 10,000 points= $10 gift card
• 25,000 points= $25 gift card
• 500 points + $48= $50 gift card

Tim Hortons Paytm Reward:

• 5000 points= $5 gift card
• 25,000 points= $25 gift card
• 25,000 points + $25= $50 gift card

Here’s my review of Paytm Canada and how to get your $5 gift card.

Rakuten Canada (Ebates.ca)

Rakuten Canada launched in 2012 and has 5 million+ members (as of 2019) who have earned over $70 million cash back.  The headquarters for Ebates Canada is based out of Toronto.  What is the difference between Rakuten and Ebates?  Well, nothing- they are the same company, and Ebates changed their name to Rakuten.

Rakuten Canada earns a commission from the stores that you shop through when you make a purchase.  The website places a cookie so that it tracks who made the referral (Rakuten or Ebates.ca) to the store that you are shopping at, according to Huffington Post.

If you have a lot of friends and family, you can get a lot of gift cards for Amazon.ca, through Rakuten’s refer a friend program.   If you have a friend or family member who doesn’t yet have Ebates and loves to online shop, if you refer to them and they sign up, and make a purchase within 30 days of more than $25, you will get $25 deposited into your Rakuten.ca account and they will get $5 deposited into their Rakuten.ca account.

To summarize, here’s how you get paid from Rakuten.ca:

• Cheque (mailed to your address on file)
• PayPal
• Amazon.ca e-gift certificate

The cheque/Paypal payment/ Amazon.ca gift card (actually, a certificate) is sent out on a quarterly basis.

Here’s my detailed Rakuten Canada review.

Get your $5 Amazon.ca gift card (or Paypal payment) here from Rakuten Canada as long as you complete a purchase of $25 or more within 30 days of signing up for the referral bonus.

This post may contain affiliate links.  Please see genymoney.ca’s disclaimer for more information.

Pampers Rewards Canada

The Pampers Rewards program is probably one of my favourite rewards program.  The reward points are called Pampers pins and they are located on the packages or wipes.  You download the Pampers Club app to scan the diapers and input the Pampers wipes codes.  Also you order your free gift card from the Pampers app too.

Each economy box of diapers gives you over 100 Reward points.  Each bulk package of wipes is 5 Pampers Rewards points.  You can also get extra points for scanning points during a particular time (I think Canadian Thanksgiving was one of them).

Pampers just recently revamped the rewards program.  Although they don’t have rewards for Shutterfly photo books or prints anymore (I was saving up points for family Christmas greeting cards), they changed the redemptions up for something pretty equally good.

You can redeem your Pampers Rewards for Amazon gift cards now (it seems to change regularly), and 1111 Pampers Rewards points is equal to a $5 e-gift card.  2222 Pampers Rewards points is equal to a $10 e-gift card.  I just redeemed for a $10 Amazon gift card recently.  They also have physical gifts like toys and other gift cards.

Here are some other gift cards available on Pampers Club:

• Aerie
• Amazon.ca e-gift card
• American Eagle
• Cineplex
• Harvey’s e-gift card
• Milestones e-gift card (you know, for that rare moment when you can go out without the kids, haha)
• New York Fries e-gift card
• Rakuten Kobo e-gift card
• Ardene e-gift card
• eBay e-gift card
• Hudsons Bay e-Gift card (these start at 3333 Pampers Rewards Points)
• The Children’s Place e-gift card (these start at 5556 Pampers Rewards Points)

You can sign up for Pampers Rewards program here.

Swagbucks

Swagbucks is similar to Rakuten Canada but you can earn Swabucks through taking surveys, taking a daily poll, through cash back as well, adding the “SwagButton” (an extension to let you know where you can earn Swabucks) to your browser for 50 SB, and through buying gift cards.  To be honest, I think the last time I logged into Swagbucks was 10 years ago.  I recently logged in and saw my 168 SB (Swagbucks) are still there, thankfully!

I’m half-way to a $3 Amazon.ca e-gift card, lol.  I clicked on some surveys completed one in 10 minutes and got 60 SB- there are varying surveys, some are 20 minutes and you can earn 80 SB, and some are quick, in 3 minutes and you can earn 5 SB.   There are also some ridiculous asks, like watching 40 videos for 2 SB!!   There are some easy asks on Swagbucks though too, and I can see why it can become addictive.  Kind of like mindless survey answering.  I guess it’s easy if you are commuting, or need to fill your time and would rather not scroll through Twitter mindlessly.

You could earn rewards more quickly (specifically, 300 SB for each referral) through referring friends and family.  You get 300 SB and then 10% of their lifetime earnings.

Swagbucks also has discounted Amazon.ca e-gift cards.  The lowest number you need is 300 SB, and you can get a $3 gift card.

Sometimes they have ‘reduced prices’ on the number of SB needed for their gift cards- for example, instead of 500 SB for a $5 Amazon.ca gift card, you can get it for 375 SB.

Normally, though, 1000 SB is equal to a $10 gift card.

Other gift cards available for redemption on Swagbucks are:

• Esso gas
• Indigo
• Starbucks
• Tim Hortons

Great Canadian Rebates

Great Canadian Rebates is a cash back website similar to Rakuten.  It has been in existence since 2005.  There are credit card sign up offers in addition to regular cash back.

One of the ways you can cash out is with e-Gift cards.  Great Canadian Rebates will add an additional top up (up to 4%) on your e-Gift Card if you choose to cash out via that option instead of using an eletronic fund transfer or through Paypal.

Redeem Credit Card Rewards

Finally, the last way to get free gift cards is definitely not the ideal way to redeem because the ‘return’ for your credit card points is not ideal.  What I mean by this, is that you can get more ‘bang for your credit card churning points’ through redeeming your points for travel.  However, if you don’t have any travel plans (ahem, two children under three makes it very difficult to travel by air anywhere) and you have lots of points you want to burn, then exchanging your points for gift cards might be up your alley.

It pained me to do so, but we exchanged our TD First Class Visa Infinite points for $175 worth of Home Depot gift cards.  We used the Home Depot gift cards towards a purchase of a Weber Spirit II burner barbecue.  We were needing a new barbecue and we didn’t have any finite plans for travel at the time, so even though the ‘return’ of credit card points wasn’t very good, it was still great for us since we got a barbecue for 30% off.  Weber barbecues rarely go on sale and last a long time, so this purchase with gift cards worked out well for us.

Gift Card Birthday Freebie

In Western Canada, you can get a birthday freebie consisting of a $5 ecard inputted onto your account for your birthday at London Drugs.  You can use this towards anything at London Drugs.

Gift Cards for Free in Canada Wrap-Up

To summarize, there are a number of places you could get free gift cards in Canada.

• Paytm Canada
• Rakuten Canada
• Pampers Club
• Swagbucks
• Credit card rewards redemptions

There are a number of other places you can earn cash back in Canada, namely Checkout 51 but again, it isn’t the same as getting a gift card, so I didn’t include them in here.  Technically if you really wanted to, you could get the cash back and buy a gift card with it, but really, it’s not the same to me as getting a straight up gift card.

Do you love gift cards as much as I do? 

Which company is your gift card company of choice?

Are there any other ways where you earn free gift cards?