Giftbit Holiday Digital Rewards Index 2025
Month-to-month business gift card spending, the holiday surge, and
what brand categories win the season
Published September 28th, 2026
For ten months of 2025, monthly reward value on Giftbit's platform stayed within 12 points of its January–October average. Then it broke upward: November came in 39% above average, and December reached 2.5× the average month. No single campaign drove it. Loyalty programs ramped up first, employee budgets landed last, and the categories recipients spent on shifted along with them.
Percentage of gift card spending for specific use case categories per month
This table shows each month as a % of the Jan-Oct 2025 dollar average (baseline 100%).
| Month | All Use Cases | Consumer+Employee | Consumer Incentives | Employee Incentives | Loyalty (all use cases) | Team Celebrations (all use cases) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 96% | 116% | 130% | 60% | 84% | 36% |
| Feb | 95% | 96% | 102% | 71% | 102% | 47% |
| Mar | 90% | 80% | 83% | 69% | 117% | 36% |
| Apr | 94% | 87% | 87% | 87% | 79% | 46% |
| May | 112% | 105% | 92% | 158% | 119% | 53% |
| Jun | 92% | 100% | 104% | 86% | 99% | 41% |
| Jul | 100% | 100% | 111% | 55% | 106% | 33% |
| Aug | 105% | 121% | 87% | 257% | 93% | 516% |
| Sep | 104% | 91% | 96% | 72% | 95% | 67% |
| Oct | 112% | 104% | 108% | 85% | 105% | 125% |
| Nov | 139% | 153% | 154% | 151% | 193% | 55% |
| Dec | 250% | 331% | 228% | 742% | 154% | 1346% |
Combined consumer and employee incentive value ran 142% higher in November and December than the ten-month baseline, outpacing the all-use-case average and confirming these two categories are the primary driver of the Q4 surge.
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Loyalty rewards are the earliest movers in the Q4 calendar. Volume climbs steadily through October before spiking 84% in November, well ahead of the broader holiday curve, then eases back in December as programs that front-loaded their sends in Q4 wind down. This timing lines up with how loyalty programs typically operate: rather than reacting to the holiday season itself, many are built around retention checkpoints and year-end "thank you" sends that businesses schedule early, both to beat the December crunch and to keep engagement high heading into a new program year. The result is a loyalty spending curve that peaks before the broader holiday surge, not during it.
Loyalty and Employee rewards move on different clocks during the holiday season. Loyalty-specific consumer rewards peaked first in November, up 84% month-over-month and 93% above the ten-month average. Then they eased back in December.
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Employee incentives tell another story showing a slow build through most of the year, with a blip in May, another bump in August, then a landslide in December, when reward value across the platform hits 7.4x the January–October monthly average. Annual bonuses, holiday appreciation gifts, and team celebrations all land in the same few-week window.
The steepest surge is December's employee rewards
Employee-incentive reward value hit 7.4 times the January–October monthly average in December, the largest single-month multiple of any use case tracked, evidence that year-end budgets land almost entirely in the final weeks of the fiscal year.
General employee rewards
Reward value stays low for most of the year, with brief spikes in May, and August, with November beginning to ramp up, but December surging past all of them.
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Team Celebrations in particular were the most concentrated of all reward categories. 56.1% of the year's total team-celebration value was claimed in December alone, with a smaller notable spike in August (accounting for another 21.5% of the year). Together, these two months made up over three-quarters of all team-celebration spend in 2025.
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Reward recipients aren't just receiving more during the holidays. They're spending it differently. In December grocery rewards rose 1067% during the holiday period, sporting goods jumped 475%, and apparel climbed 257%. Against that backdrop, travel and hospitality's 27% increase isn't holiday growth so much as a relative decline. Since overall reward spending is running well over 100% above baseline in the same period, a category growing only 27% is capturing a shrinking share of holiday dollars, not a growing one. Read together, the data suggests recipients are using holiday rewards to cover the season itself: hosting, gifting, gearing up for winter activities, rather than banking them toward future travel plans.
That flexibility is built into how Giftbit rewards work. Recipients aren't locked into a single retailer. Depending on how a program is set up, they can choose from Giftbit's full catalog of regional brands, everything from grocery and big-box retailers to specialty and hospitality brands, or select from a curated shortlist that a business sets in advance. The category shifts in this report reflect that choice in action: when recipients have the freedom to pick where their reward goes, spending patterns shift in step with the season, rather than staying fixed to whatever brand a business might have chosen for them.
What people claimed: December's biggest movers
Comparing December reward spend to the September–October baseline shows how differently recipients chose across categories during the season. Grocery, sporting goods, and apparel rewards rose 1067%, 475%, and 257% respectively in the holiday period, while travel and hospitality rewards grew just 27%.
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The platform's slowest month to claim a reward is also its busiest, a pattern that holds across nearly every reward category.
Platform-wide volume peaks in December and so do claim times. With the exception of Electronics & Gaming, and Prepaid categories, December is the slowest time to claim. Median claim time reaches 162 minutes in December, roughly 2-4X the rest of the year, and December alone accounts for 13.1% of the entire year's claimed rewards, the largest single-month share of any month tracked.
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Nearly one in three grocery gift card claims made all year happens in December, and those claims take longer to redeem than at any other time.
Grocery rewards show the most extreme version of the December pattern. Median claim time jumps to 1,318 minutes in December, up from a range of 86 to 346 minutes across the rest of the year, and nearly a third of all grocery reward claims for the entire year (30.6%) happen in that single month.
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Some of the platform's fastest-claimed brands slow down dramatically in December, suggesting a seasonal shift in recipient behavior rather than simple inbox backlog.
Starbucks rewards are typically claimed within 7 to 9 minutes in the first few months of the year, but that climbs to 168 minutes in December, a 24-fold increase.
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Amazon shows the same pattern: claim time rises from 10 minutes in January to 83 minutes in December, an 8-fold increase.
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December is the slowest month to claim a reward across most categories and brands tracked, from grocery gift cards to Starbucks to Amazon. The size of that slowdown varies widely, grocery's median claim time rises over 7x, Starbucks nearly 24x, but the pattern isn't universal.
Prepaid cards and gaming entertainment rewards show no December slowdown at all, staying just as fast, or faster, than the rest of the year. Giftbit's 2025 platform data can't say why most categories slow down while a few stay instant, but the split itself is informative: rewards that are redeemed for immediate, single-purpose use (a gaming top-up, a prepaid balance) don't get caught in the same holiday delay that slows down considered, multi-option claims like grocery or retail gift cards.
Plan holiday rewards in two waves: schedule loyalty and customer sends by late October, and lock in employee recognition budgets before December. In Giftbit's 2025 platform data, loyalty rewards peaked in November and employee rewards peaked in December, so programs that start planning in December have already missed the first wave.
“Timing is an important part of creating a powerful reward experience. The holiday rush can be a blur...Creating these moments is powerful and simple, and they last through the busy holidays to motivate in the new year ahead." — Leif Baradoy, CEO Giftbit
Loyalty rewards peak in November, rising 84% from October. If your customer appreciation sends aren't scheduled by Halloween, you'll land after most programs already have.
December employee-reward value reaches 7.4× the monthly average, driven by bonuses, holiday recognition, and year-end budget. Settle approvals, recipient lists, and messaging before December so the final weeks are about sending, not sign-offs.
December is the slowest month to claim a reward, with a median claim time of 162 minutes. If a reward is meant to cover holiday meals or gifts, give recipients time to claim and use it before the break.
Holiday spending shifts toward grocery, sporting goods, toys, and apparel, while travel barely grows. Offering a full catalog or curated shortlist lets recipients' choices follow the season, instead of locking them into a brand picked in October.
