If you receive or purchase a “gift card,” you should use it as soon as possible.
Friday evening, a “supervisor” gave my wife a $25 gift certificate for Cracker Barrel. On Saturday afternoon, my wife invited me to lunch. Dinner and service was pretty good, but when we gave the gift card to the cashier, the gift card “did not work!”
The cashier insisted we needed a 4-digit code to use the card. There was no such information in the packaging the card came in, nor on the card. The cashier tried “0-0-0-0” and it did not work. She tried the last 4 numbers from a card ID number. No luck.
The cashier called the manager. The manager asked my wife to call the phone number on the card. My wife called but got an automated voice, asking for the card’s id number, my wife gave the number, but the automated call simply hung up.
The manager suggested the card was an older card. Probably a re-gift, you know when you get a gift, hold on to it and re-gift it to someone else later. The manager said newer gift cards come with 4-digit codes.
The manager told us he would keep the card and our meal was free. We thought great, but my wife said, “I still want to pay for a tip to our waiter” and she did.
Tips for Gift Cards:
- Use the gift card before it expires, eventually cards change.
- Try calling the service phone number before using the card to activate the gift card.