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Gift vouchers: friend or foe?

Would you vouch for a gift that has particularly rigid terms and conditions?

I was considering buying my son a gift voucher for the Interislander ferry, so he could use it for a trip in the summer holidays. I’d been attracted to the idea by a headline, “Looking for the perfect gift?” on their website. But the terms and conditions say, “There is no refund or residual value if the value of the booking is less than the value of the gift voucher.” My question is, why would anyone want to buy an Interislander gift voucher?

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The perfect gift, eh! They’ve got to be joking. You buy your son a $200-gift voucher, he buys a trip that happens to come to $180, and, by my understanding, they won’t refund the remaining $20. That’s ridiculous. It does make you wonder if anyone’s ever bought one. I see on their website there’s also no refund on the voucher if the booking is changed or cancelled.

And you lose it if you don’t use it within two years. That would also put you off. The way this “perfect gift” is offered seems so typical of the way rail and ferry services are run in this country. Consideration never seems to be with the customer if things get even a little bit tricky. How silly is it that Interislander loses, in your case, $200 worth of businessbecausethey’renot prepared to refund your son $20 if his travel bookings don’t exactly reach the amount on the gift voucher? My reading of the terms and conditions tells me it’s worse than that. They won’t even let him store that $20 to use on a later journey. You asked why anyone would want to buy an Interislander gift voucher. It beats me.

Anyway, do vouchers ever make a gift to shout about? Not really. They’re practical, but very dull.

Do you have a consumer question you’re longing to ask Kevin? Email [email protected], or post to Weekly Consumer, PO Box 90119, Victoria St West, Auckland 1142

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