Retailers say gift cards are this holiday season's hottest gift choice. But beware of the fine print: About a third of the cards that are offered most widely here have catches that could easily drain their value before recipients fully use them.

Still, gift cards are much improved from past years. New laws and more rigorous enforcement have led most prominent national retailers to get rid of expiration dates and little-noticed maintenance fees on their cards. But some persist.

The Deseret Morning News closely examined fine print on 41 gift cards. It chose brands often offered at local grocery or retail check stands, those offered by major retailers for their own stores, online sites for major retailers and some popular bank-issued gift cards.

Twelve of the 41, or 30 percent, had terms in fine print that could drain the value of a card if a recipient is not careful — or could cost the buyer more than the face value of the card, a fact they may not realize until checkout.

Such problems may be costing consumers billions nationally.

The Tower Group, a financial-industry research firm, estimated last year that consumers lose $8 billion a year to unredeemed value, expiration or loss of gift cards. That's more than double the annual losses from debit and credit card fraud of $3.5 billion.

Even so, the National Retail Federation reports gift cards are this year's most popular gift choice. The federation says 88 percent of shoppers plan to buy two or more gift cards this season, with a typical consumer spending $123 on them. Overall, the group projects gift-card sales to total $26.3 billion nationally this holiday season.

Maintenance fees

The most common and potentially costly problem with cards found locally is maintenance or dormancy fees, found on 11 cards examined by the Morning News.

Gift cards for both Harmon's and Smith's Food and Drug stores have terms saying that if the cards are not used for 12 months, a fee of $2 a month is charged retroactively back to the first month of dormancy and will continue until the card is used or no balance is left on it.

In other words, if a card isn't used for a year, they slap on a $48 fee and continue charging $2 a month until the card's value is drained or the card is finally used. For cards issued for amounts of $50 or less, the fee could swallow all their value if recipients hold on to them too long without using them.