Having those gift cards means you may buy at the bar more freely than if you were paying cash, as well.
Quoted for truth.
Hoping that gift card buyers will give away the cards and create new, loyal customers for the bar is, truly, a very, very secondary effect of the cards. Retailers of all sorts push gift cards (particularly those sold directly at their stores / restaurants, rather than at a gift card kiosk at the grocery store) specifically because it gives them cash, right now, for merchandise that they won’t need to redeem until later (perhaps much later), and some percentage of gift cards never get redeemed at all.
I’ve had restaurant chains as clients in the past, and this is exactly why they push gift cards so high at this time of year – it’s an easy way to add to their bottom line at the end of the year.
Don’t feel too badly about it. If you’re gaming the system, you’re only gaming it a tiny, tiny bit. By buying the gift cards, you’re giving the bar owner money today that you’d otherwise (probably) be spending over the next few weeks to months. That’s a win for the bar owner. The fact that he’s also giving you the promo cards is, effectively, the owner paying a premium ahead of time for money he’s getting, in hand, today.
Also, for those saying, “but the owner says that the idea behind these is to attract new customers” – I suspect that it wouldn’t actually work that way very often. Assuming that the gift cards aren’t used by the buyer himself, they’ll wind up in one of four types of hands:
- In the hands of someone who already patronizes the bar (and, thus, probably not causing a net increase in the bar’s revenue)
- In the hands of someone who won’t ever use them (small net increase in the bar’s immediate revenue, as the gift card is never redeemed, but no long-term effect)
- In the hands of someone who’s not been to the bar before, uses the gift card to go to the bar, likes the experience, and becomes a regular
- In the hands of someone who’s not been to the bar before, uses the gift card to go the the bar, doesn’t like it, and never goes back
Of those four cases, only #3 actually works “as intended,” and I’d be very surprised if it’s by any means a large percentage.
I say you are fine. Gift cards aren’t really gift cards; more of a reverse-tab. You are giving the merchant money now against future purchases you or someone else may make. Or not. You may forget about or lose the card and then he/she wins. You can read the gift as something you are giving someone else or as a gift to the merchant who is assured a future repeat customer who may spend X-amount and then some.
Now if it really bothers you and you need to --------- I can provide my home address via PM. Old and dear friend. 
Well, it’s not a crime, that’s for certain.
Tell us though, do you actually need the profit you’ve turned here? Or are you just doing it because you found a way to benefit yourself, so why not?
If you don’t actually need the extra money, then yeah, you’re kinda taking advantage. Of someone you refer to as a friend. And they’ll know what you did, without a doubt. Maybe they know you better than you think, and won’t be the least surprised. And maybe they won’t really think of you as a ‘friend’, anymore.
Sounds like he is already getting a pretty good profit off of your patronage. A temporary decrease in his margins on your behalf isn’t going to be putting him out of business. I would think that even with the discount, he is still profiting off your business.
It was not necessarily the intended use of the program, but if it makes his customers happy without actually causing him a loss, then it sounds like it is a beneficial use anyway.
If it were the other way around, buy a $25 card and get a $100 card free, then you may be taking a bit of advantage there.
Otherwise, it’s no different than seeing a 25% off coupon for a place you like to go to, and deciding to use it on your next visit, rather than only using a coupon for a place that you otherwise would not have.
I hear 25%, but I’m not sure that that is as true anymore with all the online ways to sell your gift card.
Of course, I don’t use electronic gift cards, only written ones, so it’s a bit harder to trade mine online like that. My gift card redemption rate is probably closer to 50% (although most of my gift cards are given for free to charitable causes.)
Cash now is always good.
And worst case scenario, he makes some regular customers happy and more loyal.
That’s a direct quote from the OP. How they determined this I do not know, but it doesn’t seem that unreasonable based on the structure of the promotion and I see no reason to second guess the OP and discuss a different scenario than the one they posted and asked for opinions on.
It’s a bit disingenuous to say that. We were talking about unwritten rules, and the OP was saying he thought that was the intent of the promotion. But this goes to the heart of the problem with trying to guess unwritten rules, doesn’t it. I (and others in this thread) think that it’s quite likely that the bar owner may be quite happy to offer a bulk prepayment discount to anyone via gift cards.
If they had a half-price beer Tuesday and you walk in on Tuesday, not knowing it’s half-price day, and you really can afford the regular price, should you insist on paying full price? If not, how is that scenario different?
It is not wrong, not even a little. There is no unwritten rule. You are paying cash now, for consumption later. End of story. The promo card is to induce you to transact. Without the promo offer, you’d just keep the cash. What the bar gets out of it is you visiting (more). With cash you could go to bar A, B, or C. But you have a giftcard, so you are going to that bar. If there ever is going to be an innkeep who wants the giftcards used by new customers only, he would need to explicitly state that at time of sale. He would probably sell like 2 of them then.
Again, the direct quote from the OP is “The idea is you buy a card which you give as a gift, then use the promo card yourself.” I find it a bit odd you don’t want to take that a face value, but whatever.
I don’t think it’s unusual to look at an OP and question what’s written. In fact, I think most people do that.
And I find it equally odd that you want to assume that it’s an actual rule, when it’s clear from the OP that it’s not an explicitly stated rule for the promotion, and that’s the whole point. It’s what the OP thinks is probably the idea behind the promotion; and we were discussing whether it’s sensible to expect people to guess the bar owner’s unstated intent, and to infer and abide by unwritten rules in a situation like this.
Well, that’s AN idea. It’s perfectly acceptable to treat it as a suggestion, rather than a rule.
Because we don’t know how the OP got that idea or even exactly what he meant- I took it to mean something closer to “the idea is to use the promo card yourself as it expires too quickly ( 30 days) to be useful as a gift”. I could be wrong- but that makes at least as much sense as your interpretation that he is violating some unwritten rule not to use the gift card himself.
Nope, nothing wrong here.
To clarify my OP, “the idea is” came from my reading of the advertisements I’ve seen for this promotion.
I had a beer with the owner of the establishment on Saturday (I always stop on Veterans Day to buy veterans a beer). When I told him about this thread, he hugged me and called me a “fucking idiot”. He told me I am a large part of his success, which I guess is true. When he bought the establishment from the prior owner, I worked hard to promote the bar. It was largely for selfish reasons; I liked the place and was afraid it would not succeed. It has succeeded, in fact it has flourished. They’ve opened a second location.
If anyone finds themselves in the New Kensington, PA area and wants to have a beer, stop by House of 1000 Beers. Message me and I’ll be there.
For several years my wife and I have done the same thing with a particular restaurant we like. Around Christmas, you can buy a $100 gift card and receive a $25 promo card. We always buy $200-$300, and get $50-$75 in bonus cards. The bonus cards are valid for about four months, and include some restrictions (e.g. can’t use on Saturday nights, or on Valentine’s Day).
The restaurant has no written policy regarding who may or should use the primary gift cards, and it never occurred to me that they might give a rat’s ass. They’re getting $100 in payment right now, and they’ll end up providing $125 in food at some later date. Maybe. There’s a significant chance that the card(s) will be lost, or that the bonus card will expire before being used.
Occasionally promotions like this do create a perverse incentive, but ultimately it’s up to the merchant to decide if the promotion, the way it’s actually being used by customers, is to their advantage or not. The most amazing promotion misstep I can think of was the US Mint’s attempt to get Sacajawea $1 coins into circulation. While the promotion was in effect, you could buy unlimited Sacajawea dollars from the Mint, and have them shipped to your home.
With no shipping charges. :eek:
And no credit card fees. :eek: :eek:
So what did smart people do? They bought tens of thousands of Sacajawea coins using credit cards that gave cash back and/or frequent flyer miles. When the coins arrived at their homes, they loaded them into their car, went to their local bank, and deposited them, using the funds to pay their credit card bill.
The Mint caught on and tried to place restrictions on how many coins an individual could buy, but the deal was too good to ignore, so people diligently applied workarounds. The Mint finally had to shut down the program after three years.
Most successful bar owners love regulars like you and would have absolutely no problem giving you that sort of a discount once a year.
It wouldn’t bother me at all, but if you are worried about it, use the savings to upgrade a purchase to more expensive food or something.
Similar to that, I believe at one point some of the AAA chapters allowed people to buy travelers checks with a credit card and without any surcharge. So people did the same thing (although it’s probably easier to show up at the bank and deposit some travelers checks than to drag a whole mess of dollar coins there).
There are whole message boards devoted to airline miles (and other, similar rewards points) where people trade ideas on how to maximize miles and exploit these opportunities. And of course there was “Pudding Guy”, who received 1.2 million miles for $3,100 in pudding cups.
I do it all the time except with restaurant gift card promotions (I don’t drink). I see nothing wrong with it.