So I have an American Express gift card with exactly $.67 of value left on it. That’s not dollars – that’s cents. So what do I do with it?

I really doubt I can walk into Whole Foods and ask them to take 67 cents off this card toward my next purchase. Any time I’ve tried to get them to help me drain a gift card in the past, they round down to the nearest dollar.

Of course, I do have a few merchant accounts for my businesses, so I could just charge it that way, but then a) it’s taxable and b) I pay probably half the value in transaction fees.

The real winner here is, obviously, American Express. Not only do they get an upfront fee on the card (it looks like it’s $4.95) but they probably get the leftover dregs maybe half the time. I’ll bet that adds up to some serious money. It’s a business I’d like to be in.

I wish some charity or some group that is somehow immune to transaction charges could collect this.