Should I spend this voucher?

[RachyB86]

Last December I gave my sons Y1 teacher a £25 Amazon voucher for Christmas - it was a printed voucher that I put inside a card and handed it directly to her, so I know she received it. She thanked me for the card at the time, but didn't mention the voucher at any point after, which stood out as other staff did mention their vouchers.

So now, thinking of Christmas gifts for this years staff (different teachers), this popped in to my head and I can see on my Amazon account that she still hasn't redeemed the voucher! They do have a 10yr expiry so I guess there's no rush...but I feel like she assumed it was 'just a card' and binned it. Therefore I begrudge gifting it in the first place and now want to spend it myself! I can see the voucher code with it being a printed voucher, so it'd be easy to do. I haven't seen her since my son finished with her in summer and I've heard she'd left the school but I'm not certain as there's been no comms to confirm this. It feels wrong to spend it of course, but also feels even worse if the outcome is that Amazon benefit from this in 9yrs time 😂

YABU - it's her voucher, you shouldn't spend it.
YANBU - it's clearly gone in the bin, spend it!

Print it again and put it in this year's card...

It has her name in the personalised text and I won't be giving her a gift this year?!

YABU. In a few years it maybe different, but she might be planning to spend it at Christmas herself, I always save any Amazon vouchers for Christmas.

Spend it in January. Give her a full year to use it.

If she hasn’t even redeemed it, I’d spend it TBH! If she wanted to save it, she could have redeemed it to use at a later date.

So would spending it after Christmas be ok? Or I should wait several years?

No. You can’t spend it!
You’re going to have to wait another 9 years.

Ooh yes good point!!

Thank you yes that seems a good idea!

I’d just not spend it personally, you gifted it to someone else, just move on! However if you were here saying it was still showing on your account after several years I’d probably say differently. I absolutely wouldn’t spend it less than a year later when she could be saving it.

She might be saving it though. I don’t think you should spend it, or at least give it a couple of years.

Well I don't think I need to 'move on' it's not like I've been doing hourly monitoring of it for 11 months 😂 it just popped into my head and after today will probably be forgotten about again for another several months. I get the part about it not being a full year though and I agree 👌

True she could be, just it was never mentioned (is this common?!) and not redeemed into her account so it all suggested to me that it hadn't even been seen, but yes it could be a big savings plan. She'll be gutted in that case if I do spend it 😂

If she hasn’t even redeemed it, I’d spend it TBH! If she wanted to save it, she could have redeemed it to use at a later date.

She might ultra be security conscious, though, as I've known people have redeemed gift cards in their account be stolen by hackers.

More likely, people who want to keep a gift card for a special treat might delay redeeming it, as they know that, if they do, it will end up going on mundane everyday stuff as they order it.

She could be anti-Amazon and thus refusing to engage with them by ever redeeming the voucher, even though that means she is inadvertently potentially helping them by gifting them a free £25. Most of us use Amazon, but we all know they aren't exactly the most ethically sound company out there.

She had 30 cards and maybe she didn't open all of them and check them thoroughly. I would wait until New Year and then I would use it. It's not as though she's going to come back to you is it?