AIBU to think using their voucher only on their share was rude?

[Dinnerdrama]

We were invited out to dinner with friends at the weekend.They planned to visit a particular restaurant and asked if we’d like to go along.
We had a nice enough meal, couple bottles of wine, liqueurs. All quite pleasant for a Friday night.
When the bill arrived one of our friends presented a voucher and asked for the bill to be halved and the voucher taken off theirs. The waiter seemed slightly bemused and repeated back the request. Our friend repeated and clarified they wanted the bill split and the voucher taken off their half.
I almost died of second hand mortification. Is this not CF of the highest order?! I wouldn’t dream of doing this when I invited people out. If I was that skint, I’d use the voucher as a couple and
not invite others along.
For the record, I have been out for a meal previously with them where I have had a voucher and I had the voucher taken off the whole bill and split the remainder.
Cannot believe the brass neck, it has put me off going out with them again. Massively embarrassed on their behalf, not sure why, they didn’t seem to be!!

It’s not cash though. I’d be mortified to behave this way. No one I know would. But maybe if I were not well off, I might have a different perspective. In that scenario I might give the group a heads up that I had a voucher and did anyone object if I used it to cover my share.

Well you would if you go round picking things up together as you both wanted items.
or if you are in a house share and collectively shopping together

To he honest even if it was actual cash I'd be given as a gift there's a good chance I'd still want to put that towards the total bill because it's still a freebie for me I would want to share. But it's a little greyer because of the flexibility of what I might have chosen to spend it on that wasn't that restaurant.

If I absolutely adamantly didn't want to share I wouldn't invite other people to the same meal.

You call your gifts freebies and want to share them with people. Sure. Sure you do.

I do actually. Not sure that's particularly odd.

You would line up at the till and request all items be rung up together and split the total at a gardening centre with a friend….for different plants you were going to take back to your respective houses? Riiiiight.

Your second scenario is different, you’re both picking up gardening stuff for your shared space.

I’m beginning to hate myself for keeping this thread alive…

Eeww cringe. I would never be a ‘but you had more than me’ sort of moron.

So you’re annoyed they didn’t use their voucher to cover part of your share of the payment? Sounds like you’re the CF 😂

23!!!! 23 pages (so far) on this voucher nonsense !?!

I despair sometimes, I really do.

This thread has made me think, because I went for a meal with a friend very recently and like your friend, I had a gift card for that place. We were always going there, it wasn’t engineered in any way. I did pay the gift card to deduct from the whole bill. I felt like that was a generous/kind thing to do. I wanted to do it and had the voucher knocking around. I absolutely wouldn’t JUDGE my friend if she doesn’t do the same thing for me in the future. Different people have different circumstances and sometimes I’m feeling flush, sometimes I’m not, and the same with my friends. Each occasion is separate.

I can’t stand ‘tally chart’ people. Do what you do for friends & family because you care and you want to. Not because you’re waiting for payback.

I assume this was in response to my question to you. I don't want to be one of those MN arseholes who bang on about reading comprehension but that clearly isn't what am asking and it doesn't involve whipping anything out.

OP appears to think she's entitled to a share of her friends gift. I'm asking if there's a difference in whether it's a gift card or cash gift, and if so, why. I gave the scenario of DM giving me and DP £100 cash plus babysitting to spend at a local restaurant that doesn't so gift cards (this actually happened). It's a thought experiment to understand if OP, and other PP who agree her friend was stingy by not deducting her gift card from the total bill, would feel the same if the gift had been cash.

Obviously I am fully aware that cash can be used anywhere whereas a gift card can't, but it's still "free money" and that seems to be the basis with which some PP's are arguing that OP is entitled to a share in it. Would they feel the same way if that "free money" had been given in cash?

Yet here you are telling millions of people.

It’s a social faux pas to do this though imho.
Using the gift voucher for your entire party is the polite thing to do. If you don’t want to do that, or can’t afford to, then use it some other time when you’re on your own.

I think that style of thinking is what has led OP to get enraged. Niceties, faux pas's etc. I think that has had it's day.

I think each to their own - was her friend using this voucher that bad? Really?

I'm sure OP has done things to annoy her friends like we all do I think she should really let it rest for a few days - guarantee she'll be less annoyed and she can see this for what it is rather than hold onto her outrage.

I think that has had its day.

It really hasn’t.

Not reciprocating is the only rude part of this.

If I paid for your meal last month then I would expect/hope you would pay for my similar meal this month (unless it was some kind of special occasion).

Could not care less if you paid in cash or in vouchers.

Oh, there's worse than this on these forums today. Check out the hate filled diatribe against men thread.

Simply this.

Yep. I’m not enraged. I’m not entitled. I’m baffled that societal norms are no longer recognised. ‘every one for themselves’. This is literally why humanity is crumbling.

So if you have a voucher but you really don't like eating out alone, you aren't allowed to use the voucher unless you share it, even if it was a birthday present from your sister?

What if it was a birthday present from the people you are eating out with? Would you expect to share it then?

A voucher worth £100 is the equivalent of £100 cash. So no, they shouldn't have given you half of their £100.
What they should have done is ask for the bill to be split then when it was time to pay their share done so with voucher plus cash.
Asking the waiter to reduce the total bill by the value of the voucher has muddied the waters making it seem like £100 'off' when it's really £100 paid by a different means.

I wonder if this thread has got so intense because loads of the people going VOUCHER VOUCHER GIFT CARD GIFT CARD GIFT CARD SAME AS CASH DO YOU EXPECT ME TO PAY YOUR MORTGAGE AS WELL OP have done this and now come to the uncomfortable realization that when they did, their dining companions thought it was a bit rum, and it's touched a few nerves.

Can't say that's a more ludicrous speculation than some of the 'different perspectives' proffered so far, anyway!

If they had been given e.g £50 cash as a gift rather than a voucher of that value would you expect them to share it with you? I don’t think it makes them awful people to not share it, but you were more generous to share yours. Up to you whether that’s a deal breaker for the friendship.

Yes, you share it, though you wouldn’t use it in a situation where it might make the people you are with feel awkward.

If I invite someone out to dinner at a restaurant I have a voucher for so they can provide me company then yes I'd take the voucher amount of the entire bill. Or at least attempt to!