Help settle a restaurant debate.

[IcedTeaForMe]

I wasn't one of the people in this scenario but I was having this discussion with a friend who was.

There are five people out to dinner and they're splitting the billl. One person(my Friend) Karen has a gift card for the restaurant given to her by her employer. The gift card more than covers her share so she generously says that the rest of the gift card can be used to deduct from the bill for the other diners meaning that they'd pay around ten pounds less than they would have without Karen's gift card. One diner objects and says that the remaining bill should be split between all five(including Karen) and not the remaining four because she hasn't actually contributed any money to the bill, only a gift card that she didn't pay for.

It seems pretty clear cut to me who was in the wrong, but I'm curious to know what MN thinks?

The objector is a CF of the highest order and bloody cheap into the bargain.

Asshole.

The objector needs to fuck off!!

Lol, I’d say fine I’ll either keep my voucher or I’ll use it for the others and the ungrateful SOB can pay their full amount.

So I’m guessing the objector was objecting because the card was a gift, so Karen hadn’t earned the money herself. Does this person usually check that anyone they are eating with intends to pay with money earned in a particular way? Eg. by mining for coal with bare hands? Who actually cares?

It’s essentially jealousy isn’t it? But also completely mad -not only because the source of the money clearly is completely irrelevant, but in this instance, the very kind woman Karen is sharing her own birthday gift! - possibly with strangers.

This takes things to new levels of insanity imo.

A gift card is payment, simple.

I might have been tempted to turn around and say get stuffed then, would have kept the gift card for a decent dinner out with family or friends (not including ones that will think you are cheating them by paying part of their bill!!).

How absolutely petty of Ian. Karen was being so generous and he was being totally unreasonable. I would have kept the gift and spent it another time on myself when he started to go off.

I've done this before myself and I put in the gift card to reduce the bill for everyone. So we had say 20 off and then we split it 3 ways so that we all benefitted.

Karen should have them withdrawn her card and everyone pays for themselves then?

I've only heard going Dutch as when you go on a date and suggest going Dutch instead of the man paying. In most other circumstances we go Dutch as default.

More importantly I want to know what the others said but the OP has gone AWOL.

Ian sounds like the sort of arsehole who eats three times as much as the rest of the group then demands that the bill be split equally.

obviously the person who says the rest of the bill doesn’t understand how to split bills! They should have spelled it out in one word syllables you divide the bill by five, and pay your fifth by gift card, cash, card or whatever. Karen paid by gift card, and took a bit of the other four fifths. They then pay theirs by cash, card or whatever. The diner who objected is an idiot

Ian's objection was that my friend, Karen, hadn't actually contributed to the billl(according to him) because she used a gift card that was given to her by her employer, therefore in his eyes she hadn't paid a penny towards the actual bill.

Ian would loathe me. I haven't paid a penny towards any bill for years, apparently - every time I go out, I just use what was given to me by my employer.

I mean, I'm talking about money in my account rather than money on a gift card, but there's obviously no difference.

Karen was being nice. Her friend is a CF.

Karen was very generous and the objector is a dick and I hope the other diners told him so.

Gift card just like cash in my book, she could have paid her share and kept the gift card for another time...I think she was generous

Why is it unacceptable? It’s as good as money and they were also benefitting from it. It was a really kind gesture but there’s always some twat that has to have a say. I would have hone on to say it only covered so many guest and not there’s so they paid in full and thevothers paid even less.

Ian needs to give he head a wobble. Can’t believe he was still complaining after it was pointed out to him he was getting a tenner off.

Some people are always looking at what others have got. I didn’t get a gift card so it is not fair.

Karen using gift card to split between close friends nice.

Karen using gift card so she does not have to pay anything and four other people she hardly knows gets a tenner off. Still nice.

It makes no difference whether she was given this "bonus" by gift card or as cash in her wages, it's her money, and objector should be grateful, if it was in case bonus, she probably wouldn't of paid the extra.

Cash bonus I meant

If I were Karen I would have used the gift card and then assumed the remaining bill would be split by all 5 including me. Anything else seems cheap and petty to me. Total lack of generosity.

However if I were Ian and Karen had not done this I wouldn’t say a word !

that I would be unnerved if someone used a voucher to cover their share

Ffs what on earth is unnerving about someone using a voucher. 🙄

Total lack of generosity.

How on earth is contributing £10 to each of the other 4 bills a lack of generosity?

lutalalala i think it’s less a money driven thing more of a ‘social gathering type’ thing.
As another poster above says I also know no one I know would have done it this way had they been Karen.
Ian was a tosser for saying anything.
If I were Karen it wouldn’t have arisen.
It’s ok to feel differently about this.

But you know the gift card was a gift to Karen right? So if she spent it and then split the rest of the bill to include herself she has basically split her gift totally 5 ways.

Would you expect her to split other gifts 5 ways too? Or if her boss had given her the equivalent in cash as a gift would you have expected her to still use it all on everyone and still split the remainder 5 ways?

She was very kind sharing it as she did.

If I were Karen I would have used the gift card and then assumed the remaining bill would be split by all 5 including me. Anything else seems cheap and petty to me. Total lack of generosity.

Bizarre, utterly bizarre

I get gift vouchers every month at work as my bonus, it’s part of my remuneration. I have a sales target and depending of what % I hit I can get up to £200 in vouchers. My employer could give me this in cash but I’d have to pay tax, NI and student loan on it so I much prefer vouchers. If I use them for a meal out it’s the same as if I paid in cash it’s just the currency doesn’t have a picture of the queen on it.