You know, in the olden days of the last century, when you were hard-pressed to give someone a gift, you might get them a gift certificate which was a piece of paper with a dollar value on it. The gift giver paid that amount, and the gift recipient could present the gift certificate at the establishment in place of cash. Because the gift certificate was a static thing, the retailer generally gave you change in cash. This was a boon to me in college, as I would buy the cheapest possible thing so I could get the cash because I was putting myself through college (having sacrificed scholarships and grants on the altar of auto-didacticism and skipping classes to read whatever struck my fancy in the college library–it only took one midterm D to scare me straight, but the scholarships were gone anyway). Even McDonald’s had them in books with $1 certificates. Back when $1 would buy you a meal at McDonalds.
At any rate, in the 21st century, as you know, the gift certificate gave way to the gift card which had the amount on it, and when you presented it, the amount you actually spent is taken off of the gift card. That way, retailers are not dishing out that change in cash. In the olden days, the issuers (sometimes the same as the retailers, sometimes not) would then start nibbling at the balance every month to drain some extra profit for themselves. But the government started making noise and might have even legislated or regulated a stop to that. But: They have a new solution.
In those olden days, you could sometimes run a partially or mostly used gift card, and the remaining balance on the card would be applied to your purchase, and you could pay the rest–and let’s be honest, from the time of gift certificates immemorial, they hoped you’d buy more than the amount you were given. But point of sales systems (seemed to) be able to easily drain that balance for you. That’s how I remember it. As so much of what I “remember,” maybe it’s not so.
However, now, the point of sale systems at the shops where I do my marketing don’t do that automatically. You can run gift cards for a certain amount, and if the card has that much, it is debited/applied to your purchase. After a couple of purchases, though, if you’re sort of mindful (the gift card is for $100; this purchase is $67.95; this purchase is $14.07), you end up with a gift card with a balance of a couple dollars and change. Not enough to buy a meal at McDonalds. So you end up with a purse wallet (in my beautiful wife’s case) or a desk basket (in my case) with several (dozen) gift cards with minimal value to them. If you don’t use them, they’re still pure profit to the issuer.
So I check the balance on the cards and write the amount on the card. And then when I hit the grocery store, mostly in the middle of the day when there’s no line, I make Sam or Ashton or the new guys other Sam and Chuck run bunches of gift cards: This one is $2.90. This one is $14.23. And so on.
I mean, we’re not skint, but I do like to not to be part of the laziness profit margin that’s padding Visa and Mastercard executive’s quarterly results. However that value is eventually lost (you cannot nibble at the balance, but I do see the cards have expiration dates like real credit and debit cards; real ones get replaced, but I expect that the gift ones just get applied to quarterly spreadsheets and dashboards somewhere).
Sorry, Sams. Sorry, Ashton. Sorry, Chuck. But when I get into a high dudgeon, sometimes others must suffer peripherally whilst I stick it to some Man.
