Why the UK high street crisis proves no one should give gift cards

It seems like the perfect present for that tricky-to-buy-for someone but it’s not a good way to give

Gift cards remain stubbornly popular, with about £5.4bn sold a year (iStock)

More than a fifth of us plan to give gift cards this Christmas.

But if 2018 has taught us anything – other than the impossibility of predicting political events – it’s that there’s almost no high street chain entirely without risk.

Coast, Toys R Us, House of Fraser, Maplin… the high street casualties make for quite a lengthy list.

And when businesses do enter administration there is always the risk they won’t honour any outstanding gift cards. Holders usually have to join the long list of creditors, if they can be bothered to.

Yet even without the risk of another high street collapse, gift cards should all come with a large warning label. A Gocompare survey this week found that 13 per cent of adults have failed to redeem the full value of a gift card and 4 per cent lost out when the relevant company went bust.

One in 10 people said they had forgotten to use their gift cards before they expired, with some saying they did not know there would be a use-by date.

But it’s not just the risk or the limitations of gift tokens that mean givers would be better off sticking cash in their cards. There are loads of reasons people fail to use their gifts – here are just a few:

They’re more complicated than cash

Every member of staff at every retailer knows how to accept cash. The same is not always true for gift cards.

Jeane Mary says: “I was given a gift card earlier this year. I visited a shop stated as accepting it. The shop didn’t know how to process it at the till so I paid cash.

“Second visit, my goods came to over the value of the card and they said they couldn’t accept it and let me pay the rest in cash, as the card reader wouldn’t process it. I paid cash for the full amount and gave up after that, I think it’s probably at the back of a drawer somewhere.”

They might be inconvenient

What seems like a lovely, considerate present could turn out to be a real pain for the recipient to redeem, however much they value the thought.

Sophie Edmonds said: “When I was a bit/lot stressed with a new baby and a house move on the horizon, my husband bought me some pottery classes – two one-day sessions.

“This was a few weeks before we moved, and we now live two-and-a-half hours from the pottery workshop, so, while I want to do them, I can’t see how taking the time would be anything but more stressful for me – a five-hour round trip for a few hours of imagining I’m Demi Moore circa 1990.”

They are easy to forget

Gift cards are small and thin and easy to drop into a drawer and simply forget about until it is too late to use them.

Eimear O’Hagan told us: “I bought my husband a voucher for a cookery lesson with a Michelin star chef and he forgot to use it and it expired. This was in the early days of our relationship when I didn’t realise he needed to be micro-managed.”

It’s much harder to forget cash and, if you do, it never expires.

They are easy to lose

Cash is often paid straight into an account or at least kept in a wallet but gift vouchers could be stored for longer, increasing the risk they will be lost.

Kate Morris said: “I lost wedding gift vouchers that were worth about £1,000 20 years ago, and was never able to replace [them]. Still makes me feel desperately upset.”

The recipient might not want them

“My husband was given vouchers for driving lessons from friends and family when he turned 40,” said Kate Simon. “He hasn’t used them yet – he’s 52 now.”

Ouch.

They have a deadline (and missing it means shame)

“I still have £40 worth of Liberty gold coin tokens that were bought as a present for me in 1998. The shame,” said Jill Foster.

Rachael Phillips said: “Shamefully, I let a Patisserie Valerie voucher go to waste recently. I was bought it for my birthday, then when they had all those troubles I thought: ‘Oh I need to use it’ only to discover it had expired.”

When you give a gift card you don’t just give the recipient a cash value – you also give them a deadline.

Having said that, it’s always worth asking a company if they will still honour a gift card even after it’s expired.

Ellie Ewing said: “I recently discovered some theatre tokens that we were given as a wedding present 16 years ago. The local theatre was happy to accept them, so we’re going for a family trip to the pantomime to see my seven-year-old’s sweetheart in Peter Pan.

“We thought our budget wouldn’t stretch to a panto this year, so she’s over the moon.”

Better options

For people who really want to give gift cards, some options are better than others. Matt Sanders, spokesperson for Gocompare Money, said: “If you want to give a gift card this Christmas but are worried about the financial stability of a company, you could buy one which is accepted by a wide range of retailers such as a National Book Token or a National Garden Gift Voucher.

“Another option would be to consider buy a shopping centre gift card which can be used in all the centre’s shops and restaurants.

“And, don’t forget to make sure the receiver knows the value and use-by date. The simplest way to do this is to enclose the receipt along with the gift card. This will show how much is on the card and when it was bought.”