Well, I meant $49.95 including the tax. My goal was to draw a distinction between the retail-store purchase, where you can buy something using only the gift card (even though you probably won’t come out at the exact total value of the card), and the restaurant purchase, where you have to put your hand in your own pocket for the tip no matter how small the actual cost of your meal.
It does kind of make a difference in terms of the extent to which you feel you’re really getting a treat for free.
Their gift card system may not support pre-authorization. With a credit card the system checks for authorization of typically the transaction amount plus 20% or so to allow for the tip. When the guest writes the tip in, the server can then finalize the transaction for the actual amount, and does not need the credit card again to do so. Some gift card systems do not support this, which means that the server would have to take the gift card again and process it again to pay for the tip. It is easier not to support it.
This is getting to be rather like the three men who check into the hotel and pay $10 apiece, but then the desk clerk realizes he overcharged them so he calls the bellhop . . .
There are three charges associated with a restaurant bill: the price of the food/drinks, the sales tax (assuming it’s taxed locally), and the tip (assuming you’re not a nontipping turd). The customer pays all of these.
The restaurant is going to collect the price of the food/drinks and the sales tax regardless of anything else.
The tip, as far as the restaurant is concerned (accounting-wise), is optional. So if the customer doesn’t leave a tip because the restaurant won’t allow it to come out of the gift card balance, then the customer, not the restaurant, is screwing the server.
My reason for continuing the nitpick is the OP’s apparent obsession with matching the exact total dollar amount of the gift with the cost of the meal, including the tip. That just can’t realistically happen when you’re giving $$$ (in any form) to be used for a specific purpose, unless, as I described earlier, you’re going to compute it to the penny ahead of time. If I give you $300 for a new bike, you’re probably not going to go out and buy a bike for exactly $300 on the nose. Either you’ll get one for less than $300 and have money left over to use toward something else, or you’ll get one for more than $300 and use some of your own cash to make up the difference.
Either way, $300 toward the purchase of a bike is a nice gift, just like (say) $50 toward the purchase of a restaurant meal.
A lot of gifts are going to end up “costing” the recipient something. The $300 bike is going to need maintenance. A nice sweater is going to need washing or dry cleaning. If the OP’s friend buys himself a hunting rifle at the sporting goods store as suggested, he’s gonna need ammo for it (and other hunting gear). Is the OP going to provide ammo in perpetuity?
But then later the OP says (bolding added):
That’ll be a neat trick.
Clearly a gift card is not the same as cash. If you want to give cash that can be used as the recipient wishes, then give cash. Or buy the gift yourself and give it to them. Or take them out to dinner yourself. Or give them a $40 gift card plus $10 cash for the tip.
To quote the OP, what’s the big hairy deal?
The big deal on practical terms is if someone handed me a gift card worth $100, and I went to a restaurant without a credit card, then I’d have no way to leave a tip at all on my $60 meal. Plus, it’s kind of tacky to use a credit card for only leaving a tip. I wonder if restaurants that are ass-hats and won’t use the gift card, will allow you to leave a tip on a credit card with no other transaction? Cash? I use it in third world countries where not everyone takes credit cards.
Luckily the only restaurant gift cards I’ve ever been given (only gift cards period, thank god!) are from thank-you programs at work, where a piddly $50 won’t cover a good meal for two with drinks, so it’s never been an issue. I can see where it would be an issue for large denomination cards.
Personally, I think gift cards such because of all the complications of where you can use them, penny balances, and all of that crap. Back when stores issued gift certificates, they’d actually pay the difference to you in cash if it wasn’t unreasonable.
Well, I don’t know how they do it down wherever you are, but here in America it’s handled by computers and the amount spent is deducted from the cards total value amount.
You didn’t get the point of my last post. What I meant, was, a restaurants policies may be influencing people not to use their gift card program.
What’s really confusing me right now, is, not how many of you have given answers/theories as to why it’s handled in the way that it is (I thank you all), but how many of you are actually viciously defending such practices.
Why? WTF do you care?
Hardy har har. That’s not what I was responding to. You said, and I quote for a third time, again with bolding:
In order for him to use the entire amount of the card AND not go over, he’ll have to hit the exact amount on the head. In other words, if the gift card is for $50, his total purchase will have to come out to $50.00 exactly, not $49.82 or $53.96, to avoid either “wasting” the remaining balance or having to pay the extra out of his own pocket. In your past posts you seem to be hung up on the issue of the recipient having to pay any money out of pocket in order to redeem the card.
Well, the reasoning in your last post was rather improbable, as illustrated above, and as I argued in my subsequent post. And it would seem, from the current popularity of gift cards, that there are still plenty of customers who think they’re worthwhile.
Well, you seem to be viciously against their policies in the first place. That’s your right, but you did ask a GQ of “Why do they do this?” Several reasonable answers have been given, but you don’t seem to like any of them.
Hey, you’re the one who asked about the issue in the first place. It’s called an argument, a discussion with two opposing views. You asked a question (which turned out to be positing one side of the argument), and some of us took the other side.
I happen to like gift cards, both giving and receiving. It’s free money, essentially, and I don’t get all het up if I might have to spend a few bucks to completely redeem one. I still get something worth $X + some small amount $Y for only $Y.
If you hate gift cards, hey, bully for you, you’re entitled to feel that way. But it doesn’t make store policies regarding their use that you don’t like go away. Sorry.
Sure why not…In Milwaukee you have to pay 5% Wisconsin sales tax + 0.5% to help pay for Miller Stadium + .01% to help pay for the Expo center. All in all it’s 5.56% and I’ve NEVER been to the new stadium and I’ve only been to the Expo Center twice (for food shows where the vendor has to rent it out).
ETA wait wait wait +.02% on hotels AND +.007 if the hotel is in Wisconsin OR +.0025% on food and beverages in Wisconsin OR +.03% on rental cars.
But who’s counting?
Hey PK, I got what your looking for, at my store we still do the old fashioned paper gift cards, after using it, unused balance is returned in cash. (Cops does this as well).
But I’m not a restaurant.
[Moderating]
I’d agree with the latter remark. The OP has gotten some good answers, but doesn’t seem willing to accept them. If he really wants to dispute the policy, he can take it to GD or The Pit.
I’m closing this as asked and answered.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator