To think 'experiences' are a bad gift to give someone?

[Ved]

Bought sometimes for around £30 to £40, but often end up costing the recipient much more to use them. (With travel expenses, and sometimes accommodation, as some of them take 3-4 hours or more to get to in a car, and even longer on a train or a bus?!)

AIBU to think no-one should be buying an 'experience' as a gift for someone, unless they know they want it?

Yep. I couldn't think of anything worse than a spa day. 😬 I totally would not go if someone bought me this. I'd try and sell it on. If I couldn't then it would be a waste of money.

I think only for a spouse or otherwise very close family member where you know it will be worth it or you are willing to help arrange the transport and logistics. Generic experience vouchers never have anything remotely near us, so receiving one would entail much more expense and travel and generally I like to buy gifts that don’t require someone to spend more money. The generic ones you get on Wowcher or these experience websites are never that good either.

I think YABU but mostly because I gift people things that they can just use. I wouldn’t buy someone a voucher where they had to add in travel costs or pay for nights in a hotel. I don’t know many people that would buy someone a voucher that isn’t local to them

Tbh I don’t want gifts from other adults full stop.

That's the sort of thing I mean. I wouldn't want to travel to some fancy hotel many miles from me, to stuff myself with greasy sandwiches laden with mayonaise, and sugary, carb-filled cream cakes!

I've had both good and bad experiences of this. I was bought an afternoon tea which I took my mum to which was lovely, no hidden charges, and lots of availability.

However this was a one off. The mother daughter photo shoot someone gifted me was only available at a venue an hours drive away and would have involved taking 2 days off work, 1 for the shoot itself and the second to commit to a hard sell a half day to go back and view the pictures.

DM used to buy dh and I an overnight stay with 3 course meal with buy a gift.com. But they changed their terms, so the last time we tried to book something, every hotel near by included additional charges, even more for weekends, so ended up costing us money
Thankfully dm understood and never purchased one again.

Exactly!

There are three uni friends I get them for every year - without them, we may not manage to get together once a year, and we always have a lovely time catching up. But like any gift, as a previous poster said, it’s being thoughtful with it to ensure it’ll work for the recipient

I know someone who was given a flight lesson. It really isn’t them 😂 Not sure what the person was thinking. I hope they were able to give it away or sell it as it must have cost a lot.

I do think people should consider how easy it is for the person to get to and if they’d actually enjoy it. I have a sibling who lives life to the full and it always full of energy. She is always wanting to buy our parents experience with fast cars etc and they really don’t enjoy them. Some people find it hard to think about what other people would like and not.

That depends. Many experiences, flying, driving fast cars etc are way out of town. Having said that, I love getting experience gifts and would be happy to travel.

The only time I’ve found them to be less than ideal is when they are only bought for one. A colleague of mine at school was gifted an afternoon tea voucher from a pupil as her end of year gift. We all swooned over what a fab gift this was, and so generous, such a lovely idea. My friend afterwards confessed to me that as lovely and thoughtful as it was, it was also a bit annoying as she was hardly likely to go for afternoon tea by herself, and if she took her husband (who isn’t really an afternoon tea fan) they’d have to pay for him.

So my stance is, experience gifts are great if you buy a voucher for two OR if the buyer is going to be the one to go with the recipient and pay for themselves to have the experience too. Which is what my friends and I do, buy a voucher for one, but with the automatic understanding that we are going to pay for ourselves to go with them!

Depends where you get them from. I used to get for my SIL and her husband. They were virgin experience one. Those you can exchange for the credit and use it on something else. They never did and always did the ones we got them, which was quite a few times. But usually u can exchange the experience to credit and pick what you want.

It depends…
If they’re bought thoughtfully then they’re a lovely gift.
DM suggested buying DS1 and his girlfriend one for Christmas 2024. She was going to buy a 2 night hotel stay until I pointed out to her they would then have to fund 3 meals a day.
So instead she bought them one night with dinner and breakfast. They picked a lovely little hotel in the lakes and thoroughly enjoyed the break.

It's a tricky one. My dad gave me a voucher toward an experience for Christmas but the voucher isn't really enough to buy any of the experiences on the site and the ones that don't cost much more all seem to have extra costs hidden in the T&Cs as well. He has actually spent a generous amount of money but it is going to work out costing me money to do something I don't necessarily want to do that much.

I’m not a fan.

IL’s keep buying them for us and their dd’s family. This year we have to do the activity at the same time. It’s a pain as nieces are much younger than our dc so we have to find a day where the children’s and adult’s activity are both available which seem to be few and far between.

I much prefer an "experience" to "stuff". If it means that I have to travel, and stay in a hotel, then all the better, because that means I get a lovely trip that I might not otherwise do. (Obviously, the experience needs to be to the person's taste.. for me it's usually gallery or theatre tickets. i would hate a spa day, so would pass it on to someone else).

I HATE getting vouchers for spa treatments etc.
I would rather have a £2 pack of lettuce seeds

Why not? If you knew me, then you'd know that 2.5 hours on a train to London, and a night in a hotel, would be my idea of heaven. Depends on the person, surely?

In fairness, you sound remarkably joyless. Oh, the horrors of carbs, sugar and a fancy hotel. Maybe next time someone could buy you a voucher for an I catered silent retreat at a convent?

I've had two. 4x4 driving (2 extra passengers allowed so took my husband and one child) and a vineyard tour and wine tasting for two. Loved both. I would hate a spa day though but fortunately have noone who'd think that was a good idea for me. I guess it depends if the giver knows what you'd like.

I think it depends how much you've looked into it, whether it suits the person, how much effort is it to book it etc. Some of them are barely worth the paper they are written on but others are excellent. When I've bought one for DH I tend to book it in as well so there is no effort on his part. PIL get us hotel vouchers for Christmas (very generously) with about 12 months to use them, and it's always for somewhere really nice. We have no trouble enjoying the gift!

I’ve had red letter gifts where I could choose the location and experience. I wouldn’t be thrilled if I was given an experience I wouldn’t want to have, like sky diving. But being given an experience voucher that I can use for something exciting or a brunch or a cocktail or a spa day, that’s not so bad.

I have made really fun memories from these kind of gifts, but it was important I got to choose.

Not to sound ungrateful, but this year in laws bought my boyfriend and I new coats, not cheap ones either. We don’t need new coats. It felt like they got us them because they didn’t know what else to get. I’d much rather they spent that money on a night in a spa hotel for us!

I think there’s a difference between an experience voucher (spa day, racing day, hot air balloon) that often has limited locations, booking requirements, certain days etc and just giving someone a voucher for their favourite restaurant or beauty salon or even just saying ‘I will take you for a spa day’. The latter is unlikely to require much of the recipient, the former may require quite a lot in terms of extra expense and travel.

My husband and son each had one for a luxury car driving experience, gifted to them at Christmas 2019. They didn’t get chance to use them before the lockdowns and obviously there was no chance for a while.
When they tried to book a date in early 2021 they were told that they’d expired and there was no extension to voucher dates despite lockdowns making them unusable for much of their validity.