A method for processing a personalized gift card transaction includes: receiving a gift card request from a consumer associated with a payment account, the request including a usage amount, a plurality of merchant identifiers, an account identifier associated with the payment account, and a message; identifying a personalized gift card number; storing a gift card data entry including the personalized gift card number, usage amount, plurality of merchant identifiers, account identifier, and message; transmitting the personalized gift card number; receiving an authorization request for a financial transaction not involving the consumer, the request including the personalized gift card number, a transaction amount, and at least one merchant identifier of the plurality of merchant identifiers; processing the financial transaction including updating, in the database, the usage amount of the gift card data entry based on the transaction amount; and transmitting the message to a recipient of the personalized gift card.