Lost money on expired gift card!!

Chicagolady

My worst was 'Stobo Castle' in Scotland. I got a £100 voucher, my parent was diagnosed with dementia, so to be honest the voucher was put aside & forgotten about, when I remembered it, I found it had 3days before it would be out of date, I called them explained & asked if I could book for 10 days time as I couldn't get time off, I offered to bring another friend which meant that our bill would cost nearly £220, they said absolutely not, if you cannot make it in next 3days then it's lost......so it was £100 down the drain..... I have promised myself I would never recommend them to anyone as they would not be flexible in any way whatsoever.

vacheron

I was given an 4 supercar driving experience day gift for Christmas from my wife and decided to leave it until the summer to enjoy it.

The general T's and C's said "most experiences have a 12 month validity, but check the voucher"... it turned out mine had 9!

As my wife had bought it before Christmas it expired on the 7th of July and the event had to be both booked and taken before the date.

Luckily I found out and booked it just in time. but talking with friends etc I now know of 5 people who have had these days, and 3 of them accidentally let them expire.

As someone mentioned above, they must have make a packet out of the non attendees!



The one thing I have had to watch expire was £80 worth of Cafe Rouge vouchers I bought with £20 worth of Tesco clubcard points.

I noticed they had 2 days before expiry. and couldn't even give them away. Very frustrating.

Nasqueron

For a party of 4 £80 of Cafe Rouge vouchers is probably one meal

gycraig_2

securespark wrote: »

I didn't call them that in my email!

However, lots of employees in call centres or CS settings are in a situation where they have no power or say in a situation, they just trot out the company line and have no power to do anything else. Often, you have to try and go up a tier to a supervisor or manager to get decision.

BTW, the T's & C's, as I'm sure you know, are not always simple and often in very small print ( I have very poor vision). The fact is that when they were sold, the conditions should have been pointed out to me.

Did you ask ? What other conditions should they of pointed out ? Should they read a 5 minute document every time they want to sell a gift card ?

maujohwai

I regard expiry of gift cards as theft, and an unfair condition. The issuers are already benefitting from an interest-free loan, but they're just greedy.

Ikea gift cards don't expire.

Book Tokens say this: "Some National Book Tokens gift cards issued before October 2015 expire if they are unused for a period of 24 months. However we are happy to replace all expired gift card with a brand new one.The majority of National Book Token gift cards do not expire for 6 years after any use. National Book Tokens paper gift vouchers do not expire."

Theatre Tokens (issued by the Society of London Theatre, but valid throughout the country) don't expire. In fact, I found a very old voucher issued by them when they were the Society of West End Theatres, and they said it was technically valid, but I would be more likely to get it accepted without fuss if they replaced it with a current one, which they did.

Pound

You can often reset the clock by buying something and immediately returning it to get a new gift card

Nasqueron

Pound wrote: »

You can often reset the clock by buying something and immediately returning it to get a new gift card

Or just buy something in the two years you have on the time limit ones, no reason not to use them in that time

Kim_13

gycraig wrote: »

Did you ask ? What other conditions should they of pointed out ? Should they read a 5 minute document every time they want to sell a gift card ?

No, but it doesn't take a minute to say, "Our gift cards expire after 2 years of non-use, is that okay?" I have purchased items excluded from standard returns policies and it has been pointed out to me before the sale was completed.

Validity periods of gift cards vary between retailers and unless purchasers search online first, they often don't know the period that applies. Often you are asking at the till for a gift card and not handling the card until the sale has been completed (unless of course you buy from a supermarket where you can read the terms on the card before taking it to the checkout.)

Bogalot

Kim_13 wrote: »

No, but it doesn't take a minute to say, "Our gift cards expire after 2 years of non-use, is that okay?" I have purchased items excluded from standard returns policies and it has been pointed out to me before the sale was completed.

Validity periods of gift cards vary between retailers and unless purchasers search online first, they often don't know the period that applies. Often you are asking at the till for a gift card and not handling the card until the sale has been completed (unless of course you buy from a supermarket where you can read the terms on the card before taking it to the checkout.)

Are you securespark? *confused*

Jazee

I don't always use gift cards bought for me straight away as there's not always something I want straight away. However, please can I advise people to use them immediately to pay for whatever especially if they are Vanilla Visa prepaid cards. First they take a cut to activate the card, then if it's not used, they take a monthly maintenance charge of £2. So if you have a £25 card which has a 5 year expiry date, its actually going to be useless to you in a year. My advice, don't buy them for anyone.