restaurant meal voucher aibu

[Allywill]

last April was our 25 year wedding anniversary and daughters got us a voucher for a 7 course tasting menu at a local restaurant. the voucher did not have a monetary value stated on it - just said 7 course tasting menu for 2 people with an expiry date of 01/04/25. We booked and went last night - so in date although almost a year after purchase. we had the meal plus ordered a bottle of wine, cocktails and a bottle of water for table so we were obviously expecting to pay for these. my aibu is that when the bill came they also charged an additional £14 as the meal price had gone up from the time the voucher was bought. we obviously paid it plus the drinks but today we are debating if that was actually reasonable. on the one hand i get that prices have gone up but on the other surely if you offer vouchers then that’s the risk you take and the reason they have an expiry date? They have effectively had that money in their account for almost a year.

I think unless it was in the small print when the voucher was purchased, they shouldn't have charged you the extra. This is the risk businesses take when issuing vouchers without a face value. They had the cash months ago, and unless they're running on an overdraftthey should have received interest on it. That coupled with the fact that a high portion of vouchers are never redeemed before they expire is why businesses offer vouchers. They are being unreasonable, and I would be writing to the owner/manager to tell them that pressuring diners at their tables to pay extra for something that they shouldn't have to is a terrible way to ensure good word of mouth or repeat business.