Yet another fecking gift experience that is useless

[Jaggypinecone]

I am utterly sick of these. I know they are well intentioned but I have never used any yet as they are too far away or just not our thing.

I'd hoped to avoid this happening again by 'having the conversation' with the person who usually buys me one for Xmas but it arrived early as he can't make it home for Xmas this year.

When you think about it, it's basically telling someone how you think they should spend their time. Time is the most precious gift of all and I don't want to spend mine shoehorning an afternoon tea for two at some shitty hotel or a fecking segway trip into my already busy schedule. It was bought down in London so is London centric. Given I live in the Scottish Highlands the nearest thing is in Edinburgh - sigh!

Straight to charity shop. And I'll need to 'have the conversation' well before xmas time next year. Any advice on how best to word this?

Driving experience was miles away and 10 minutes in the 'experience' car. Pointless

Yip DH had this 15 mins tank driving in a muddy field and a 2 hour round trip.
I read it before we went and told him the 'Experience Day' was actually 15 min in the small print.
Absolute waste of time. However he felt obliged to use it.

I think I got a beauty voucher that year that I ended up splitting with my pal so we each got an hour long treatment.

We've had ones that we've never used and a meal one that we booked so far in advance we forgot all about it. Not to mention it was a Sunday night so a pita for babysitters you couldn't use it Friday or Saturday.

Honestly Op you are going to have to say some thing. Either a please give it to somebody else or let's not bother with gifts next year.
Maybe he would use it himself?

I wonder if a lot of experience gifts are bought by people who have less money than the recipient. Buying a meter oak gift for a very well off person when you don’t have much is tough - you know so many of the things you could afford are not the brands or things they need. In fact, there is probably little materially that they need which you can afford. So an experience gift feels like an answer. But it isn’t of course.

After spending quite a few years on here, you become aware that some people consider anything a crap gift whilst others love the same thing. If you’re not very good at knowing what people like, it’s so hard. I have got to a place where I ask people if they would like something before I buy it. And don’t take offence if they say no - I just think of something else and ask again, or ask them if there’s anything else they’d like instead. I do make suggestions though to give them an idea of my budget and so they don’t have to do all the thinking.

Meter oak!???

Material

Giving it to a hospice etc for a raffle gift is a great idea - noted for my own use!

There's always the option of regifting
I couldn’t regift my £100 spa voucher to the giver because that would be rude, and there’s nobody else who I’d normally give such a large gift to. Should I give a £100 voucher to a friend who I’d normally only spend a tenner on?! Or to a charity who I’d normally just donate a fiver to? Basically I end up losing my expensive gift.

Surely you don’t spend all year in the Scottish Highlands

indeed. Strong candidate for one of the "daftest things you've seen on MN"threads

I know it's been commented on several times but it bears repeating.

The OP isn't in the least bit ungrateful.

If I lived in the Highlands I would indeed stay there all year round!!

Atholplace for a £100 spa voucher I'd say to your other friend, I've a Spa voucher, do you want to come and we can get a treatment each?

Or tell other friend the truth, it's a regift but I wouldn't use it for xy reason.

I would hate it. I was bought a full day beauty pamper day. I’d hate that so gave it to my daughter and a friend bought tix to see a singerid long gone off in a city I hate driving round in winter

No thanks.
I was ill that night 😉

I bought my ex a balloon trip andyes it too three attempts in a year to bloody get him up there
However what didgo well was for my husband, son and son in law I bought them a jetski and parasail experience which was based In Tenerife
They got them for their birthdays in April and August, so they couldn’t talk about it until after the August birthday

We all went to Tenerife for our wedding and we all 16 of us trooped along to give the men a good send off..while we watched from the bar/ restaurant

They absolutely loved it.
One of the best birthday presents ever
They were just so exhilarated
Fabulous

Balloon trips seem to be really weather dependant.

The only way experience trips really work is if the gifter helps to facilitate it.
I got DH a flying lesson, he had no clue until we drove into the back end of the airport. He thought it was another driving experience because he needed his driving licence . We then went for lunch.

But if somebody else has bought it, and then he needed to actually organise booking it and time then it would have been different.

Out of curiosity I had a look at 4 websites offering these deals and narrowed the options down to afternoon tea in Edinburgh (the paintballing whilst ballooning/ spa days would be utter hell for me)

Interestingly in a city which has any number of grand hotels and excellent restaurants all sites had the same selection of very limited venues. Only 1was a good hotel; most were run of the mill and definitely not destination/ event venues.

For example Edinburghers will know Eataket on Frederick Street- it's a pleasant cafe, excellent choice of leaf teas but sometimes runs out of cake when it's busy and service can be ropey. Café Rouge also featured. Again, nothing against Café Rouge but it's a "can't be bothered to cook/ I'm fed up shopping I need a wine/ it's a safe and reliable choice" venue- not an event choice.

Atholplace for a £100 spa voucher I'd say to your other friend, I've a Spa voucher, do you want to come and we can get a treatment each?
If there was anything I could get for under £100 I’d have used it myself. That amount wouldn’t even cover one person never mind two! The cheapest package was £140 and I didn’t have an extra £40. Nor could I sell it because it had my name on it. Most pointless gift ever! And the most annoying gift too, because it was an utter waste of £100 that I really could have used.

I got given three, yes three gift experiences for my significant birthday.

From my DH and his family.

We have no babysitter anymore (seriously ill) which DH forgot.

Irritating!

Atholl that's unusual most spa / beauty places will do a treatment or two for less than an actual spa day.

But i agree it's really stupid to buy a voucher if it doesn't cover the minimum spend in a place. And who wants to do a Spa Day on their own?

This thread has just reminded me to book an afternoon tea one that I’d be given.

I’m in Gloucestershire and some of the places looked OK but a bit of a trek to get to so I just picked a Cafe Rouge in my town which is a bit meh but otherwise I wouldn’t have used it.

I think the problem is a lot to do with the market leaders in gift experiences being utter rip-off merchants.

MIL got me a branded, packaged gift experience for a hotel "of our choosing from over a hundred". Except the majority of the hotels listed were too far to make it worth the drive for one night, and most only accepted the voucher Tues-Thurs, when we have school aged children and no local overnight childcare. I also strongly suspect that the boxed gift price was considerably more than their rack rates. I don't blame MIL as no T&Cs were listed on the packaging. Didn't get used.

On the other hand a mate got me a voucher for one of my favourite local independent restaurants - no strings or limitations, and enough to cover meal and drinks for the dc and me. Perfect.

Oh I got an afternoon tea voucher for a lovely cafe that couldn’t cater for my food allergies! That was a thoughtful gift 🙄

"I think the problem is a lot to do with the market leaders in gift experiences being utter rip-off merchants."

That doesn't connect to the gift giver being thoughtless though.

The fact some people are calling you ungrateful is ridiculous!
You live at the other end of the country - the cost alone of getting to London and a 10 hour drive is laughable!
You can swap any experience Groupon/virgin experience / buygift just go online and switch if nothing there sell online eBay.
Total joke of a gift
When the person asks did you use it/ have a good time just tell them the truth.
No I couldn't it would have cost a hotel for the night and travel down to London and it's not really something we would do.
Be straight!!

As my brother once said "I got you a voucher that can be used in any shop: it's called money".

"Thanks for sending me xxx. Unfortunately I won't be able to use it, and wondered if you'd like me to return it, so someone else can get the pleasure of it.

Good response!

Experiences as gifts are fine as long as the giver thinks about the person's circumstances. But if it involves expensive additional travel, babysitting hassles, etc. then it's not a thoughtful gift but a lazy one.

Voucher for use in any shop is a good one!
But it's one of the reasons I stopped exchanging gifts with friends. I was half convinced the same £20 note was just going round in circles. At that point it becomes really really silly.

I hear you.

I got the make-over followed by a photo shoot voucher.

I fucking howled with laughter, I was a few months post partum and was the size of a house!

I studied fashion and consider myself relatively stylish. The MIL and SIL went and spent hundreds on soft focus photos of themselves in their best frock which also made me laugh hard!

I agree, it’s lazy gift buying if you know someone well. You surely buy them something useful or that will at least be appreciated?