Book flights, hotels, rides and tickets for less — travel gift cards, in escrow

An airline gift card, a Hotels.com card, a Ticketmaster card, Uber Cash from a gift card — these are the gift cards people hold longest, because spending one means having a trip to take. Selling the code gets 70–80 cents on the dollar and a buyer who cannot tell whether it is loaded. FlipGift does it without the code ever moving: the seller keeps the card and books your trip with it, in your name, on the brand's own site, and you pay a below-price amount into escrow that reaches them only after you have verified the booking — and, for a flight or a stay, only after your trip has started.

How a booking works here

1. Price the trip on the brand's site and post it. The airline, hotel site, ride app or ticket site; the passengers exactly as on their ID with date of birth and gender (airlines cannot ticket without them), or the hotel guest, or the rider and their mobile, or the email of your ticket account; the dates, route, property, pickup or event; the total the site shows. You name the discount you want.
2. A seller holding that brand's card takes it. They have 4 hours to accept — 1 hour from the moment they open your request — and 2 hours after that to book. You pay the discounted total from your FlipGift balance the moment they accept; if nobody accepts before the trip is too close to book, the request cancels itself and nothing is held.
3. They book it in your name with their card. On the brand's own site: the flight ticketed to you, the room under your name, the ride scheduled with you as the rider, the tickets bought and transferred to your account. Your email and phone go on the booking, so the confirmation and any schedule change reach you, not them.
4. They enter the confirmation code and the booked names, and upload the confirmation screen. We read the names off the screenshot and compare them with the traveller you named; a mismatch stops the deal for you to look at before anything else happens.
5. You find the booking on the brand's site and confirm. Record locator plus last name on the airline, the itinerary in your inbox, the transfer waiting in your Ticketmaster account, the driver's text on your phone. One tap. Tickets and rides pay the seller then; flights and hotel stays pay the seller the day after your trip starts, because whoever booked can cancel until then.

Why the payout waits for the trip

Airlines and hotel sites let the person who booked cancel: within 24 hours for any US airline ticket, later for most fares as a credit, and up to the eve of arrival on a free-cancellation hotel rate. Every one of those refunds goes back to the card that paid — the seller's. So on a flight or a stay the seller's entire payout sits in escrow until the day after your departure or check-in. If the booking vanishes before then, you press "Report a problem" on the deal and are refunded in full; cancelling a booking made for a buyer ends a seller's account. Transferred tickets and completed rides cannot be taken back, so those pay out the moment you confirm.

The brands, by what they book

What it costs

Sellers list travel cards at 8–15% off face value, sometimes deeper. You ask for a minimum discount and are matched with the seller offering the most; you pay the site's total minus that discount, plus a 2.5% platform fee, from your FlipGift balance. Fares and rooms reprice by the hour, so the seller's total can differ a little from what you saw: up to 5% over is theirs to absorb, more than that comes back to you to approve before they book, and a lower real total is refunded to you automatically. A $500 fare at 12% off costs you about $451.

The names are the whole deal

A ticket is issued to a name, and airlines check it against ID at the gate. Type the traveller names exactly as on the document that will be shown — a misspelling is a real ticket for nobody, and it is the one thing no arbiter can fix afterwards. The seller books in those names and nothing else; a booking in another name is caught by the screenshot check and refunded.

Holding a travel card yourself?

List it on the travel sell form: pick the brand, the balance and your discount. A buyer's paid trip comes to you, you book it on the brand's site in their name with your card, and the cash — the booking minus your discount, minus 2.5% — reaches your balance on their confirmation (tickets, rides) or the day after their trip starts (flights, stays). Nobody ever sees your card, and you never send a code to anyone.

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