...to think it's pretty outrageous that gift cards expire?

[MackerelOfFact]

And to be surprised that people waste their money on them?

I received a £50 Ticketmaster for a significant birthday about 15 months ago. I decided I would put it towards either a production of my favourite ballet, or Wimbledon tickets. I was unsuccessful getting either last year, so logged on yesterday to try again for this year's Nutcracker tickets, only to find that my voucher had disappeared from my account. I Googled and eventually found, tucked under many sub-menus, the 'terms and conditions' that the vouchers expire one year after purchase and cannot be reinstated or extended. Not one year after activation, not one year after last use, but one year after purchase - bearing in mind that the person using the vouchers will not be the same person who bought them, this seems even more stupid.

Obviously it's partly my own fault for not checking first and using them within the 12 months, but I am pretty livid that a relative has effectively donated £50 to a company with a turnover of about £7 billion in aid of my birthday. I am so embarrassed. I obviously can't tell them so I will probably end up buying tickets out of my own pocket and pretending I used the voucher.

I appreciate that companies might need to know for accounting purposes when they can expect to supply the services due, but quite frankly if they can't afford to supply gift vouchers then they are not obliged to do so. Nobody is forcing them to sell them.

I received National Theatre Tokens for the same birthday and according to their website they never expire.

Fully expecting to be told I am being unreasonable, but just wanted to warn anyone thinking of buying gift vouchers this Xmas to a) check how long they last, b) let the recipient know, and c) consider giving cash instead.

YANBU!

It's appalling, and ticket masters is especially bad. So much money is completely wasted with vouchers, it's depressing. Nowadays, I use vouchers within a month of receiving them, or make a big reminder to use them for next season stock.

I don't mind receiving them, if they are from Next or Amazon. I am not keen on small amount vouchers for expensive brands, what use is a £20 voucher when the cheapest item is £50. Nowadays, I sell them to friends if I don't have use for them.

YANBU. Companies are deliberately ripping people off as they know that a proportion of people won't realise the card hasn't expired until too late (vouchers never used to expire so many people won't realise). I don't really see the point in vouchers. You are basically giving people money that they can only spend in one place that will expire if they don't use it on time.

I guess there is a reason for it in the sense that the money is received by the company on the purchase of the gift card, but they will have to give up goods/services on the presentation of the gift card at a time of the customer's choosing (and not receive any extra funds). And the company would not be able to budget for the gift card usage, since it could come at any time. So if the company had a downturn and got into financial difficulties, these could be compounded by lots of people used their gift cards.

This is why I really don't like gift vouchers... Unless they know there is something you want soon, like a show you want to go to in 3 months or an item you are going to buy then there is no point... and even then better to still give cash with a little note to say 'put this towards x'.

At Debenhams, for instance, its two years since last use. And checking the remaining balance counts as use. That's more understandable. Ticket master sounds rubbish.

YANBU at all.

YANBU we ended up going to a concert we didn't really want to go to because we had a hundred pound voucher to use up.

On a positive note I had £150 worth of vouchers for a local spa place. I didn't use them due to two pregnancies close together then having two under two. Then I lost them. Nearly six years on I moved some furniture and found them. They had 2 year expiry dates but I rang the spa and they were happy to let me use them.

I think they do need to expire at some point in case of bankruptcy or a mass usage of the vouchers in a year where the company isn't doing so good, but it needs to be at least two years! And yes printed in big letters on the voucher instead of hidden in small print. A year goes quickly and sometimes people have no desire to spend them in that time.

Two years from 'last use' seems a bit more reasonable, as it writes off vouchers that have been truly lost, forgotten about or discarded. Still a little bit cheeky, but you could at least extend it as many times as you needed to.

It's annoying that this has happened to so many people. I guess the moral of the story is just to use them immediately, on anything, even if it's not what you really want to spend them on.

YANBU. I had 3 gift cards for one clothes shop to use which MIL had given me for various Birthday/Christmas presents. Got to till and told by nice lady serving me that 2 of them had expired! DH unimpressed so emailed their customer service team stating disappointment, etc., that the cards had expired and that the small print stating the period the cards are valid for is printed on the reverse (and we hadn't removed the cards from the pretty card thing they came attached to). Roll on about 2 weeks and nice shiny valid gift cards arrive in the post. Result!
Now been spent on clothes for DH!

I'm currently trying to spend a large value Gift Card someone kindly gave me. I have bought one item that I wouldn't otherwise have bought - wouldn't have been able to justify the cost, One item that I use regularly v though it's cost more than it does from my normal stockist. Other than that, I am using it to buy Christmas presents for other people, but again, I am spending more than I usually would because otherwise the voucher would be wasted. I am thinking of 'reimbursing'myself to the value of what I would normally have spent and then using that to treat myself later, so it should work out OK. But what a faff!

It's for accountancy reasons, like you said. The period used to be much more generous but most places seem to have dropped to a year or two now.

Ticketmaster and a few others will reissue gift vouchers if you send the physical voucher back to them, within a month of expiry, as a "goodwill gesture". That's not much use to you if you've thrown the physical copies away though.

Bloody Harvey Nicks print paper vouchers and they are only valid for six months.

I had nearly £200 of them (I returned something for my boss without a receipt and she 'couldn't be arsed' with the vouchers in the end so gave them to me as a sort of chridtneas bonus) The small print is tiny and I was saving them for Christmas shopping.... but I was 1 month too late!!

Several emails to customer 'services' went totally unacknowledged

Even worse are the one4all gift cards. My sister bought DS one. We thought he had ages to spend it but when we eventually got round to using it, it had 40p or something left on. We'd missed the small print that stated they take 90p a month management charge until the balance reaches zero!

*christmas bonus!! Ffs.

YANBU! I don't think they should have an expiry date. I imagine it's to stop fraud, so that people aren't discovering old ones and then creating problems with authenticating them. But that's all very much for the convenience of the store, not the customer.

12 months is ridiculously short! Anything under that is crazy.

YANBU. Twice I've had vouchers which expired ridiculously soon. My sister bought me vouchers for an afternoon tea thing for Christmas one year, she bought them in the November IIRC and they had a 6 month shelf life (which was in the tiny print of their T&Cs). The restaurant only served this particular one outside (which wasn't something they advertised openly, it was something we were told when calling up to book it in February!) and we couldn't go in April/May for various reasons, so it was either book for March and risk it being cold/rainy or not go. Luckily we didn't book as it was still fecking snowing at the end of March that year!

I also got bought a voucher for zorbing, again that had a 6 month time limit on it but that was fine, apart from the fact that they kept cancelling it due to high winds and after the third or fourth time being cancelled that 6 month period was up and they refused to let us rebook.

I remember a high street shop, about ten years ago now, decided that as they were going into administration they wouldn't be accepting gift vouchers, they made this decision just after Christmas Does anybody else remember that? They were eventually bought out and did accept them again but I remember being in there soon after and the queue of people taking it in turns to scream at the poor shop assistants was awful.

A fair proportion of gift vouchers are never redeemed. The companies know this and that's why they push them. It's pure profit.

They also know that often when they are redeemed the value of the purchase is higher than the value of the voucher.

So if the company had a downturn and got into financial difficulties, these could be compounded by lots of people used their gift cards.

I don't really buy that. Considering, the company had received money for the gift card they shouldn't be including it in their profits etc. The reason they don't is because they are hoping that people will never spend the voucher.

I really don't see the point in gift cards as far as the consumer is concerned. They only profit the company.

I hate gift vouchers that can't be used online.
We were forever being given toys r us vouchers even though we don't have one nearby. At one point we had several small value cards - they didn't allow multiple use or to be topped up by a card payment. (I have just looked and seen they now allow up to 5 gift cards.) I ended up sending 4 cards each with £10 on back to the grandparents who'd bought them and suggested they buy a present and post it and explained why...they didn't saying I was ungrateful!

There is a very sensible boring accounting reason for them expiring, as they would show as a liability on the annual accounts otherwise, which would basically devalue the company over time. It's the same for loyalty card points...

Boots learnt this the hard way, as their Advantage points don't have an expiry date. They have full time employees in head office who's sole job is to deal with probate claims for points to be transferred to the beneficiary of a will. It is a huge cost to them that came about because they didn't have the right Ts and Cs in their small print.

I got £50 vouchers for two local beauty salons for my 40th. One expired after 3 months, the other 6 months. I hadn't looked, so lost both vouchers. The shops may have made a crafty £50, but I never set foot in either salon again and told a lot of people about how crap they were, so it lost them a lot more than they "stole" in the long run,

This Sint directly relevant, but why would points need to be transferred to beneficiaries of a will? Wouldn't they just use the card and make purchases! I'd never think to do anything else...
YANBU OP. It should be simple to have a separate accounting process for cards so money paid for them doesn't show as income until it is actually used.

The gift experience ones are even worse. My DS got one for his 18th birthday. Red letter day or something. It expired in 6 months. Which of course, he didn't notice. It was a generous present too...about £100.

One Christmas MIL got me a manicure gift voucher. I'd just had a baby and it was a lovely thought. Obviously I had my hands full initially but come Spring I thought 'ooooh I know, I'll escape for my manicure now'.

Nope. Expired after 3 months. I was bloody livid, and felt so bad that MIL wasted her money.

I also made a point of never going to that salon ever again. 3 months just struck me as grabby, like you're willing people not to use them.