Croma Gift Card vs E-Gift Voucher 2026: Balance, Expiry, Refunds

Croma sells two gift products that read almost identically on the page. The Gift Card is a physical card you can buy in a store or on croma.com. The Electronic Gift Voucher, or EGV, is an emailed code sold only on croma.com. Both start at Rs. 500, both stop at Rs. 50,000 online, both are sold in multiples of Rs. 100, both last 365 days, both carry a 16-digit number and a 6-digit PIN, and both can be spent in a Croma store or on the website.

One difference matters more than all of that. Croma's published terms for the Electronic Gift Voucher state that it “has to be utilized in one single transaction and the balance will not be carried forward”, and the FAQ on the same page repeats it: “any amount balance in the EGV will not be carried forward. The entire amount needs to be redeemed.”

The physical Gift Card does the opposite. Croma's own summary says it “can be used multiple times until expiry” and that “additional amount can be reloaded at Stores” and on croma.com. Same brand, same money, same year of validity — and on one of them, a Rs. 10,000 voucher spent on a Rs. 8,200 microwave is a Rs. 1,800 donation.

You do not get money back. Croma's terms for both instruments say the refund is made “to the effect of the value of contribution of the Gift card to the sale”, and that the re-issue is made as an Electronic Gift Voucher — sent to the email address and mobile number used at checkout.

Read that together with the EGV rule above and the consequence is unpleasant but clear: a refund on a gift-card purchase arrives as an instrument that must be spent in one go. If you bought a Rs. 14,000 television with a physical Gift Card and returned it, what comes back is an EGV for the gift card's share of that sale, and the next thing you buy with it has to use all of it.

Two further lines sit in both documents. “No refund, replacement or cash back would be considered against the Gift Card” — the instrument itself cannot be converted to money. And “once Gift Card is issued, the company will not entertain any request from anybody for its cancellation”. Buying the wrong denomination is not reversible.

MyGyftr vouchers — the codes banks and employers hand out as rewards — are accepted on croma.com and in stores, and Croma's FAQ states their rules plainly. They are “for One time use only and if the MyGyftr voucher value is more than the bill value, remaining amount will be forfeited”. A maximum of five codes can be used in a single transaction, and a code is alphanumeric with a maximum length of twelve characters.

You also cannot mix instruments. Croma states that MyGyftr vouchers and gift cards “cannot redeem in a single invoice”, that no two cards or prepaid modes can be combined in one payment, and that two payment offers cannot be clubbed on a card at the time of purchase. If the voucher covers less than the cart, the balance can go on a credit card, debit card, net banking or a wallet — but only one of those.

Croma adds a caveat of its own on acceptance: it “makes full efforts to accept all Instant Gift Vouchers but on account of technical / administrative reasons, the website may refuse to accept vouchers”. If a code fails at checkout, that is the published position rather than an error on your side.

An Electronic Gift Voucher does not work out of the box. Croma's terms state that the recipient must activate it, because the OTP is generated against the recipient's account details, and that activation is done by SMS in a fixed format: GCACT <space> 16-digit voucher number <space> 6-digit PIN, sent to 7200666000.

The email you receive carries the 16-digit voucher number, the 6-digit PIN and the expiry date. Croma's instruction on both documents is the obvious one and is worth repeating because gift-card fraud in India runs on exactly this: do not share the OTP or the PIN with anyone, including anyone claiming to be from Croma. The FAQ elsewhere states that “the Croma team will never request you to share any of your card or account related details over email or over phone”.

For a physical card, reloading is a four-step flow on croma.com — choose Physical Gift Card, select the Re-load tab, fill in the fields, then pay. Croma notes that if a reload fails, “we will refund the debit amount to the original mode of payment”.

Buying a gift: choose the physical Gift Card. It survives being spent in parts, it can be topped up, and the recipient is not forced to build a basket around it. The only reason to prefer the EGV is speed — it arrives by email rather than by post.

Holding an EGV: spend all of it at once, slightly over rather than under. The shortfall can go on any other payment method; the surplus cannot be recovered. Check the balance before you shop, because the entire amount is consumed at the first redemption regardless of what you spend.

Holding a bank or employer voucher: the same rule, harder. One use, five codes maximum, no mixing with a Croma gift card, and any excess over the bill is gone. And if you are planning to pair a voucher with a bank offer, you cannot — Croma states that two payment offers cannot be clubbed.