People give Amazon gift cards because they think of them as basically giving cash without giving cash. I know it's not universal but, for me, an Amazon gift card just gets deposited straight into my Amazon account and applied against new orders until it's gone.
> People give Amazon gift cards because they think of them as basically giving cash without giving cash.
For people who think of them that way, it just raises the question -- then why not give cash? Cash is much more useful.
If you know that your mother enjoys that particular spa, then I agree, it's a good, thoughtful gift -- basically that's the right way to use gift cards/certificates.
That's not how they're used for the most part. For example, 90% of the time when I'm given a gift card, it's for Amazon -- the thought behind that is precisely the same as it would be for cash, except that I am now constrained to using it on Amazon rather than somewhere else that may be a lot better for me.