AIBU to ask a restaurant to honour an expired gift voucher?

[Mum2BeRants]

So gutted and just need space to rant! I’m going to email the restaurant but unsure whether to go for begging or complaining!

Bought my partner a £50 voucher for his favourite restaurant as a birthday gift. This wasn’t cheap for me as I was 8 months pregnant and on maternity allowance and we had a lot of unexpected joint costs this year. But I wanted to buy it as he sadly had to miss a special event on his birthday when we thought I’d gone into labour on the way there!

Anyways gave birth a few weeks later, obviously not in a place to immediately use the voucher. Baby’s now 8 months so started looking at booking and it’s EXPIRED!! I can’t believe it. 6 month expiry date. I completely took it for granted that 12 months would be the absolutely soonest expiry, more likely 2 years+. Wasn’t a priority to double check in the midst of new born baby chaos and recovery.

What a punch in the face.

Didn’t say 6 month expiry in the email receipt. And just in tiny small print on the website.

I don’t think we’ve got a leg to stand on but also don’t think I have anything to lose sending an email pleading with them for mercy! Anyone else had similar and had any luck?

180 nights to use it 😂 we didn’t actually have a single night both of us baby free in the first 6 months.

If they’d made it clearer it had a 6 month expiry from the start I wouldn’t have bought it. If we’d noticed before it expired DH would have had to take someone else, which still would have been very annoying.

I don’t think a voucher is the same as buying theatre tickets. It’s very clear when you buy theatre tickets when you’re buying it for. And for that reason I didn’t buy any tickets like that for dates in the first few months after having a baby.

I think if it's an independent restaurant they generally need/want the custom immediately hence the shorter date compared to many vouchers.
Lots of small businesses are struggling (higher costs for them to pay staff, bills etc) and also lack of customers who are struggling to afford going out as much.
Part of me wonders whether they do the short date in case they do go out of business.

I don't really understand your point about how you would now need to spend more on top, wouldn't that have been the case anyway? Or are you now trying to suggest the prices have gone up so what could previously have been included in your voucher won't? Again don't complain to the restaurant about this! This is your own fault for not using it sooner.
You need to be careful not to make it their fault (as it isn't) and you are more likely to get a better response by being polite about it and accepting your error rather than suggesting it's them in the wrong (voucher being short dated, no longer covering the meal).

Worth a polite ask - as you might get lucky - but you have to accept it is on you not them for not checking the date.

So if they say no - will be one to chalk up to experience.

But that was your choice. It's not the restaurants fault you had no childcare.
You check the terms and conditions when you buy something.

It sounds more and more like you are trying to blame them for your mistake.

I run a business, and if it were me, I would do it for you without question x

I agree it's not like theatre tickets but it's kind of constricting to buy a voucher with a time limit. Better to make your own IOU type voucher and set the money aside for whenever the treat is convenient.

Until this point I’ve never had a voucher with an expiry date less than 12 months. It’s unusually short. I would usually check the date of a voucher when it’s nearing 12 months since we got it but it had never occurred to me it could go out of date even sooner.

I’ve learnt a lesson from this and will always check in future but I do feel like the restaurant chain should help customers and make this information more prominent.

The childcare part isn’t about blame. Simply If I’d realised it was 6 months expiry I wouldn’t have bought it because of the childcare challenges within the first few months of having a new baby. It wasn’t a choice. It was just an oversight by me.

But you are not the business I dont think it works where customers can just make up the rules tp suit them when they feel like it and having a baby doesnt exempt people from chekcing details

I did this too! I was given a gift voucher for a lovely restaurant and when I went to book, realised it was over a month out of date - like you, I just assumed it would be for a year, not 6 months.
I emailed them, said
' i have totally and utterly cocked up here and missed the expiry date, is there anything you can do to help'?

And they did😁

Good luck!

Yes it would always have been the case that we would need to spend more on top. The meal and drinks would always cost £70 for two as a minimum. I couldn’t stretch to that much for the voucher but would have split the remaining cost with DH when we went to the restaurant.

I simply meant that if we go we’d be spending another £20 at the restaurant. If we can’t use the voucher we can’t justify going there and spending £70 we’re on too tight a budget at the moment.

What rules would I be making up?

I just made the mistake of assuming it would be a 12 month minimum for the expiry date. That’s my mistake. But I do think the restaurant could help customers avoid this by making it clearer.

What do you mean split the cost with your DH?! You are a couple....sounds a bit weird that you don't share the costs of a meal out.
Anyway that's not the issue you are asking about.

Every response you give does try to blame them. They should have made it clearer, they have a shorter date than I expected.....all of this is on you to check. If I went to the supermarket today and knew I wanted to buy food for the weekend then I wouldn't just pick items off the shelf without checking it's use by/best before date. If I did just grab the first item without checking and it needed using today then that would be my fault. Likewise you wanted to buy a voucher, you knew it wouldn't be used immediately, so you needed to check how long you had to use it.

Well you have nothing to lose by asking!

Sorry I’m not as perfect as you @Moonnstarz !

As we say around here 'If you don't ask, you don't get'

Give it a whirl. Make it chatty, light hearted, explain what your delay was around and it might just end up in front of someone who's in a good mood and will sort it out.

If not, nothing lost at all.

Good luck!

Be careful how you come across. Adopt a light and apologetic sincere tone. Don’t try and blame them. And if they refuse, please don’t slag them off on SM.

I would ask if they could help you, admit you made a mistake, and that life got in the way, the voucher has expired and is there anyway they could reissue/ honour the gift card. If it’s a big company I’m sure they will. But a gentle side note this is your mistake, you need to own it rather than rant

I’d ask, I’ve been in a similar situation and they extended it.

It's worth a polite ask. Many restaurants would welcome a customer who wants to come, receives good service in facilitating their visit and hopefully passes that goodwill onto friends and maybe writes a great review. They might say no but that's not the end of the world.

I have said nothing about being perfect. All I have said is don't go in complaining or making out this is their error. The more you have posted the more you have blamed them for your error, so my feeling is if you approach them with that attitude then they will be less likely to extend it. If you go in apologising for your mistake then they are more likely to extend it.

Ask them nicely, if they refuse say well i'm afraid your review ratings will take a hit- then be all over Trustpilot, trip Advisor etc, etc pointing out their deficiencies.

It was in the small print and you just didn’t read it. You made assumptions. This is on you OP, they have done nothing wrong.

What sort of arsehole would do that? The OP made a mistake in assuming that the T&Cs were more generous than the reality. If she asks nicely, they may still honour the voucher out of goodwill. But they are within their rights to refuse and should not fear being unfairly slated all over the internet when they've done nothing wrong.

Don't blackmail a business because you can't read the terms and conditions. How utterly ridiculous. Honestly, let's all blame other people for our own mistakes shall we? Childish and immature.

Just ask nicely @Mum2BeRants if they will honour it in the same way that @Flicitytricity has outlined. No need for chapter and verse about babies or anything else. And you can't complain because they didn't do anything wrong.

Again though, that isn’t the fault of the restaurant. You can ask don’t complain as it’s your fault.