A.C. Moore Gift Card: What Can You Do With It Now?

An A.C. Moore gift card can no longer be used at A.C. Moore, because the arts-and-crafts chain closed every one of its roughly 145 stores and shut down its website in late 2019. A.C. Moore was a craft retailer along the U.S. East Coast — it was never an air conditioning or appliance company — so if you are holding one of these cards, the practical question is whether anyone will still honor it. The short answer: the cards lost their original home when the company wound down, and the best path now is to check whether Michaels (which took over up to 40 former A.C. Moore locations) will accept it, and to know your rights under state gift-card law.

Below we walk through what happened to A.C. Moore, what that means for your gift card, and the realistic options for getting value out of it — including selling it, redeeming it, or recovering its value through your state. We will keep this factual: a closed retailer’s gift card is a different problem from an unwanted card at a store that is still open, and it pays to know which situation you are actually in.

What happened to A.C. Moore?

A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts announced in November 2019 that it was exiting retail entirely. The company closed all of its stores and shut down its online business, citing the same pressures that have squeezed many brick-and-mortar retailers. As part of the wind-down, Michaels — A.C. Moore’s larger competitor — agreed to take over the leases of up to 40 former A.C. Moore locations and reopen them under the Michaels brand in 2020. That is the key fact for gift-card holders: A.C. Moore itself no longer exists as a place to spend money, online or in person.

Can I still use my A.C. Moore gift card?

Not at A.C. Moore — the stores and website are gone. When a retailer fully closes, its gift cards generally become very difficult or impossible to redeem, because there is no longer a register or checkout to accept them. Some shoppers reported that certain Michaels locations honored A.C. Moore gift cards for a limited window during the transition, but this was never a permanent, company-wide guarantee. If you want to try, call your nearest Michaels first and ask directly whether they will accept an A.C. Moore card before you make a trip.

Because acceptance was inconsistent and time-limited, do not assume the card still has spendable value. Treat any Michaels redemption as a possibility to confirm, not a certainty.

What do you do with gift cards when a business closes?

When the issuing business closes, you have a few realistic options:

• Check for a successor or acquiring company. If another retailer absorbed locations (as Michaels did with A.C. Moore), call and ask whether they will honor the card — policies vary by store and over time.
• Contact your state’s unclaimed property office or attorney general. Gift cards are regulated at the state level. In a bankruptcy or shutdown, some states let consumers file a claim or recover unredeemed value as unclaimed property. The rules differ by state, so check your own state’s program.
• File a claim in the bankruptcy, if one exists. If the company filed for bankruptcy, gift-card holders may be listed as creditors. Recovery is often partial and slow, but it is sometimes possible.
• Accept that the value may be lost. Honestly, for a retailer that has fully closed, the card may simply no longer be redeemable. It is worth a few phone calls, but set expectations accordingly.

Can I sell or convert my gift card to cash?

For a card from a still-open retailer, gift-card exchange marketplaces (such as CardCash or Raise) let you sell unwanted cards for a percentage of their value, and some sites facilitate card-for-card trades. The catch with an A.C. Moore card specifically: these marketplaces buy cards they can resell to someone who will actually spend them. A card from a chain that no longer operates has little or no resale value, so most exchanges will not buy it. Before listing any card, confirm the marketplace actually accepts that brand and check the offer price.

How to Make a Pop-Up Gift Card Holder

Does Michaels accept A.C. Moore gift cards?

A.C. Moore and Michaels were separate, competing companies and were never affiliated, so under normal circumstances one chain’s gift cards are not accepted by the other. The A.C. Moore shutdown was the exception that created confusion: because Michaels took over a number of former A.C. Moore stores, some customers were told their A.C. Moore cards would be honored during the transition. This was a limited courtesy, not a standing policy. If you want to try to use an A.C. Moore card at Michaels, call the specific store first and confirm — do not count on it.

How to check an A.C. Moore gift card balance

The original A.C. Moore website and customer-service line that let you check a balance are no longer active, since the company shut down. If you still have the physical card, look on the back for any third-party processor information, but be aware that the merchant balance-lookup tools tied to a closed retailer often go offline. The most reliable step now is to ask Michaels or your state’s unclaimed-property office, rather than expecting a working online balance checker.

Your rights under gift card and unclaimed-property law

Gift cards in the U.S. are governed by a mix of federal and state rules. Federally, the CARD Act set baseline protections — for instance, gift cards generally can’t expire in less than five years from the date funds were last loaded, and inactivity fees are limited. But those protections assume the issuing store still exists to honor the card. When a retailer shuts down entirely, as A.C. Moore did, the more relevant questions move to state law.

Most states have unclaimed property (escheat) programs, and in some states the unredeemed value on gift cards eventually becomes unclaimed property that a consumer can claim back from the state. Rules vary widely: some states treat gift-card balances as escheatable, others exempt them, and the process and timelines differ. Your state’s unclaimed-property website (often run by the treasurer or comptroller) is the place to search your name and ask whether a closed retailer’s gift-card value is recoverable. It’s free to search, so it’s worth a few minutes.

Filing a claim if the company went bankrupt

When a chain winds down, it often does so through a bankruptcy or liquidation process. In that process, gift-card holders are generally treated as unsecured creditors. Practically, that means:

• There may be a formal “bar date” — a deadline to file a proof of claim with the bankruptcy court. Miss it and you typically lose the chance to recover anything.
• Unsecured creditors are paid last, after secured lenders and other priority claims, so any recovery is often a small fraction of face value — or nothing.
• Court-appointed notices and the case docket are where deadlines are published; for a long-closed case like A.C. Moore’s, those windows have generally passed.

The honest takeaway: for a shutdown that happened years ago, the bankruptcy route is usually closed. It’s most useful as a lesson for any future situation — act quickly when you first hear a retailer is failing.

Avoid gift-card scams when trying to cash out

People holding hard-to-use cards are exactly who scammers target. Protect yourself:

• Stick to well-known, established gift-card marketplaces, and never share your card number or PIN until a legitimate sale is confirmed.
• Be skeptical of anyone promising full face value in cash for a card from a defunct retailer — that value generally doesn’t exist anymore.
• Ignore unsolicited messages claiming they can “unlock” or “reactivate” a closed store’s card for a fee. That’s a classic scam pattern.

A lesson for unused gift cards generally

The A.C. Moore situation is a useful reminder to spend store gift cards relatively soon after receiving them. Retail is volatile, and a card is only as good as the company behind it. If you receive a gift card you’re unlikely to use, the time to act is while the store is healthy — spend it, regift it, or sell it on a reputable exchange. Letting cards sit in a drawer for years is how people end up holding value they can no longer redeem when a chain closes its doors.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is A.C. Moore still in business?

No. A.C. Moore announced in November 2019 that it was closing all of its stores and shutting down its online business. The chain is no longer operating. Michaels reopened up to 40 of the former locations under its own name.

Are A.C. Moore gift cards still valid?

They cannot be redeemed at A.C. Moore, because the company has closed. Some Michaels stores honored them temporarily during the 2019–2020 transition, but that was not guaranteed and acceptance now is unlikely. Call your local Michaels to confirm before assuming the card has value.

Can I get a cash refund for an A.C. Moore gift card?

Possibly, through your state’s unclaimed-property or attorney general’s office, which regulate gift cards and sometimes allow consumers to recover unredeemed value when a business closes. Rules vary by state, so contact your own state’s program to ask what applies.

Why a closed-store card is different from an unwanted card

It’s worth separating two situations people often blur together. An unwanted gift card from a store that’s still open has real, transferable value — you can spend it, regift it, or sell it on an exchange for most of its face value, because someone else will happily use it. A gift card from a retailer that has shut down, like A.C. Moore, is a fundamentally weaker asset: there’s no register to accept it, exchanges won’t buy what they can’t resell, and your only realistic avenues are a successor company’s goodwill or your state’s unclaimed-property process. Recognizing which bucket your card falls into saves you from chasing options (like reselling) that simply don’t apply to a defunct brand, and points you straight to the few that might actually return value.

This is also why generic “how to cash out a gift card” advice can mislead holders of A.C. Moore cards. Most of that advice assumes a live merchant network behind the card. Once the merchant is gone, the card’s spendability goes with it, and the conversation shifts from “where do I redeem this” to “can I recover any value at all.” For A.C. Moore specifically, that means a quick call to Michaels and a search of your state’s unclaimed-property database are the two highest-value moves — everything else is unlikely to pan out.

Next Steps

If you have an A.C. Moore gift card, start by calling a nearby Michaels to ask whether they will honor it, since Michaels absorbed many former A.C. Moore locations. If they will not, contact your state’s unclaimed-property office or attorney general to see whether you can recover the value. Skip the gift-card resale sites — a card from a closed retailer generally has no resale value. A.C. Moore was a craft store, not an HVAC brand, so there is no appliance angle here; it is simply a question of squeezing what value you can out of a card whose store is gone.