Chances are you can't. 

We had to get a report of all gift cards and their balances on the last day of using the old system.

Whenever a customer comes in with an old gift card, we look up the number in a binder. Then we transfer the card to the new Square Gift Card and use "Other > Gift Card" as the form of payment. We adjust on a spreadsheet this process so that it doesn't' look like additional sales but simply exchanging one form of currency for another. 

Definitely not a nice workflow, but was better than the fees we paid each month to run the gift card program from the other vendor.

We just migrated today from our old Gift Card system to Square. Followed the steps layed out here and all when VERY smooth.

When someone brings in an old gift card, we can check the balance or apply to a sale. You simple type in the number on the back of the old card. Sure it's an extra step that takes a couple of seconds, but it well worth it to have our gift cards intagrated all into one system now.

Looking to do this soon, but have a few questions.

Once migrated, the gift card codes basically are e-gift cards, right? That is, if I have square appointments on my webpage customers would be able to type in their old (migrated) gift card code to pay for their appointments?

Second, you say that not all gift card code styles may be supported. Can you provide more details as to what sorts of codes might not be migratable? I have alphanumeric codes (just letters and digits, no symbols) that vary from 6-12 characters in length.

Thank you for your time!

Hello @DaoDeJing, these are great questions. I did a bit of digging on my end to find the answers, sorry to keep you waiting! 

When we've migrated your old gift card numbers for you, you'll be able to manually enter the old gift card numbers into the Point of Sale app.

Your customers won't be able to pay for Appointments using a gift card (old or new from Square!) but I'll share your interest in that feature with the Product Team! 

To answer your second question gift card numbers should be numeric only and between 4-19 numbers long. 

Hope this helps! If you're ready to migrate your old gift cards to Square contact our Support team! 

Thank you for your answers. They're pretty disappointing though... 😕

Gift cards are a HUGE part of many appointment-based industries (salons, massuers, barbers, etc.), so it's simply shocking that gift cards of any kind are incompatible with Appointments. Please encourage the engineers to make this high priority!

Digit-only gift card codes are an understandable decision on Square's part, but I imagine that factor alone would prevent many business from deciding to change to the Square system. The inability to migrate their alphanumeric codes - and thus causing a greate amount of frustration for customers when their codes don't work - is too great of a sacrifice.

Thanks again for taking the time to address my concerns. At the moment these limitations are a deal-breaker for me. But I'll keep my eye on Square and hopefully the system will be able to provide increased functionality in the future. (At the very least, the ability to use gift cards to pay for Appointments.) Thanks again!

You're welcome @DaoDeJing! I'm sorry to hear that you aren't going to use Square but thanks for considering us! In the meantime, I'll share your feedback with our Product Team who are constantly working to improve our features based on our sellers' (and prospective sellers') feedback! 

Thanks. I have thought of a workaround though.

I can just avoid using Appointments to process payments at the time of booking. Problem solved! I'll just require card information to hold the appointment (to charge in case of no-show) and check them out using Square POS when they arrive and pay, thus allowing gift card codes to be applied.

I think this will work for now. Thanks for your help!

Hello,

I've been trying to work with square reps and engineers for a week now to get our migration done; last I heard,  it was complete, but when I key in the card number from an old card (it's all numeric and 6 digits)  it tells me invalid card.  Am I missing something?  Is there somewhere I can go on my square dash board to verify or view the migrated data?

In my case I had some cards that where 16 digits and some that where 15. They imported them all but added a 0 to the beginning the the 15 digits cards to give them 16 like the rest. Just 15 digits wouldn't work. 

My understanding is they all have to be 16 digits just like the Square Gifts cards. Once we worked all that out everything seems to be work well, and that was a year ago. 

@Milancoffeestat So sorry to hear about the trouble with the migration. This is definitely something we can invesigate more closely for you. Since it doesn't look like we already have an open case for this issue, can you reply to your last email with your supporter or reach out directly again? We want to make sure you get up and going correctly! 

@Sean  Thanks for your response.  I continue to play phone and email tag with the reps on this issue.  I've spoken with a number of reps but most frequently, Valencia.  The card numbers of the uploaded old data vary from 5-6 digits through 11.  Maybe this is part of the issue?  I will try inputting zeros in the beginning.  I've been emailing the support staff that emails me but it's taking up to 3-4 days to receive a single response, and usually I hear back right at the end of the business day Friday, where I have no opportunity to respond.  I tried to call in again yesterday and the phone customer support was down.  

Super super frustrating not being able to reach anyone on weekends, and the delay before responses come in.  There also seems to be disparity between how reps handle this--  When I called again on Thursday, the rep who answered claimed that I was not an authorized user on the account (I am the creator of the account!  and the only other person on the account has ensured twice in the past that I am on the authorized users list) and told me he "thinks he can see the issue" but could not tell me until my authorized user status was updated!   After calling back again that evening, the other user was told that I was *already* an authorized user, and that they would return my call.  I did not receive any return phone call back.

I'm not trying to be negative, but I really just need to wrap this up and get my manager's business back up to speed and running as soon as I can.  

Hi there! 
I am running into this exact same issue. I’m wondering if it was ever resolved? 
thank you! 

Hello Sean,

We purchased 1,500 gift cards from our previous provider (Moneris) before we switched to Square. These card have never been used (sold) or loaded. Based on what I read so far, can you confirm for me is these cards are useless now I cannot be migrated to Square?

Thanks.

Shawn

We've determined a workaround for this. We had a LOT of cards left over from our previous system, so we're preloading those in the system in popular increments of $5 (for giveaways and promotions), $10, and $25. When a customer wants to purchase a gift card for any of those amounts, we can reach for the "old" preloaded gift card, sell it through the square system, and print out a verification of funds on the card. None of this was put into place until we had functioning Square gift cards to use. We do have to type in a nice long number by hand with the old cards (luckily the majority of ours are zeroes), but it's a small sacrifice, grand scheme. 

As I told our rep, these plastic gift cards are way too expensive to become obsolete in a migration! 

Hi there, @smallcakeskelle - you can migrate your issued third-party gift cards to Square Gift Cards, and our team can help with this process. I've moved your post to this thread where @Sean has detailed the steps taken to migrate your gift cards. Please reach out directly to get started!

@Allabouther Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Seller Communitiy! 🙂

I've merged your post to an existing thread where Sean details how to complete this. You can also find some other workarounds that some sellers have used. Let me know if you have any other questions.