Finally went last week and had a great day on the trails. All beautifully built with an efficient uplift.

Day was slightly soured as I got the same response face to face as I had by email when trying to use a gift voucher – no we will not honour it as it is out of date.

I appreciate they are running a business but as I had taken six guys with me on a December Monday, which including food generated >£300 revenue for them, this seems pretty mean spirited and certainly impacts on my enthusiasm to organise a return trip.

This voucher was bought as a present by my parents in Feb 15. In waiting a few months before using it things were complicated by me smashing my shoulder and being off the bike from June to Jan 2016. Life this year has been v complex and my first opportunity to get down to S Wales was this month.

Poor customer relations or are they within their rights to pocket my parents money with no provision of goods or a service?

Did they specify how long the gift vouchers last ?

Sounds unfortunate but fair, the voucher has a date on it, doesn’t matter you took a load of other people.

They’re within their rights but as customer service goes it’s pretty crap. I wouldn’t be too impressed either. Pure business at BPW

Yes they are within their rights. 6% of gift vouchers are not redeemed source

OR is the wrong word.
They are both within their rights AND showing poor PR

Is a bit miserable of them, but you say you did email prior to arrival and get a “sorry, no” so I’d not have assumed the answer would be different on the day.
Did you get in touch prior to the voucher running out to explain? A few years ago we bought my wife’s nan a spa day voucher. We discovered about 2 days befor it expired that she had forgotten about it so we called the spa & they extended the date by a month so we could use it. I’m not so sure they would have gone for what I assume was 9 months though. (Original purchase Feb ’15, assume 12 months validity so expiry Feb ’16.) I’d have sold it on during that time myself…

So we’ve to beware that something that you shouldn’t expect to happen….. doesn’t happen?

It’s the problem with gift vouchers having time to redeem them before they expire.

There is no legitimate reason a gift voucher should have an expiry date. It’s just a con to boost pofits. If you use the 6% not redemmed above as an assumption and assume BPW has a 20% profit margin (probably less in fact) then unredeemed vouchers are as profitable as an increase of 30% (6%/20%) in rider numbers as it goes straight to the bottom line. This plus they have the money in advance.

Misleading topic title is misleading.. 😕

Clearly states on their website..

Vouchers are valid for 12 months from date of purchase.

Does seem a bit arbitrary and unfriendly, and I’d hope for a bit of flexibility and discretion if the OP had contacted them within the valid period and explained he was injured. Might be a bit too much to expect this far after the fact, though.

They are within their rights, but it’s totally rubbish. I really don’t understand gift vouchers. The company has the money in the bank, and if the voucher is per amount rather than service then the company won’t lose anything if it’s redeemed over a long period of time. Having a time limit, especially one which is so short just appears to be robbing the person of that money. Especially as a customer you gain nothing by purchasing a voucher.

Gift vouchers are a complete rip off of the consumer. You’d be better putting the cash in an envelope and a print out of what it’s intended for with a note saying – spend on this!

There is no legitimate reason a gift voucher should have an expiry date.

sort of agree but I guess its to protect price rises? I’d have called before it expired, explained circumstances and maybe then good customer service would have kicked in…..

Why would you have an expiry date on a voucher?

It can be a bit hit and miss there- I turned up a day early for a booking once, and they happily swapped it over, despite being fully booked, another time I hurt myself the day before and I had to write the booking off.

As I think another poster alluded to, most companies are pretty good at extending voucher deadlines especially if there are extenuating circumstances.
I booked one of those cheesy hot air balloon ride things when me and the current Mrs Deviant got together, due to poor weather it kept getting called off on the morning of the day booked, this happened several times and the deadline for using the voucher was looming, I called the company office and explained the situation….result: no problem and he put another 12 months on it for us….most companies are quite reasonable if you give them a heads up….although your post has made me jittery as I’ve been dropping hints all year about a BPW voucher for Christmas, I’ll have to scrutinise the expiry date if I get one!

I had a similar incident with them. Booked some coaching sessions but the wife couldn’t make it on the day we’d booked so I looked into moving it (with plenty of notice). They were very slow and vague in their responses. Made it impossible to book anything else and we had to give up and write the money off.

I’m with jamba in this one – clearly they’re within their rights not to honour the voucher, and it’s what their terms say, but it’s not a particularly reasonable condition to make vouchers expire. To protect against price rises is a rubbish reason – if they’ve had the money long enough for the voucher to expire then it’s helped the cashflow, and ultimately it’s that which is the most important thing for most companies.

I think vouchers that are for a specific use – i.e. a day at BPW – its fair that they have a time limit. Vouchers that are for say £100 redeemable against say a day at BPW should be unlimited time.

As a business owner personally I’d have made the call that honouring the vouchers would generate more goodwill and lead to repeat visits, but I guess they are within their T&C’s.

I find that although the trails and location are spot on, and that I deeply admire the founders efforts (listen to interviews with them, they are sound people), the front line service is somewhat lacking. Café staff are some of the most miserable sods I’ve had the displeasure of being served by and there is a general sense of officiousness with regards to certain rules (don’t try and eat near to closing time, despite the kitchen being packed of staff they don’t want to know).

Shop guys vary, I’ve had amazing service and another visit where I might not even have existed. As always there are two sides to every experience, so this may not be representative.

Can’t fault the trails, and I guess that’s the point, but it feels to me like the day to day management suffers.

If the voucher has not been redeemed it would also be a pain in the arse balancing the books at the end of the year.

I’m not sure why anyone would every buy someone a gift voucher. Either put some thought into something and buy someone a gift or give them cash.

However, they are well within their rights as the voucher had expired, and it wasn’t an unreasonably short period. I’m pretty sure an advance call and explanation prior to expiry would have resulted in a more favourable response.

If the voucher has not been redeemed it would also be a pain in the arse balancing the books at the end of the year.

Presumably though a 12-month voucher issued in February could be used in more than one financial year, so there must be a mechanism for carrying it over?

Not at all – you just list unredeemed vouchers as liabilities. Clearly given a 12 month expiry there will be plenty of unredeemed but valid vouchers at year end (especially if they’re doing a standard accounting year which finishes just before most people will want to use the vouchers).

See, I’ve had great service from BPW, Antur and FoD uplift guys when I’ve made internet bookings, paid obviously and then realised I can’t make the day for whatever reason….in some cases I’ve phoned and spoken to someone and other times I’ve just emailed but all of them have happily moved me to a day I can get to….maybe it helps that as I work shifts I tend to book midweek slots but either way they’ve all been brilliant.

I suppose the issue is that there will be plenty of vouchers issued that will never be redeemed, and if you had to keep carrying them over into the next year as liabilities, it would start to build up and distort the picture after a few years, whereas with a 12 month expiry, you only carry them over once, then they disappear.

I like the idea of a BPW gift voucher so you could buy one for a mate and say “you’ve got to come there with me now, no excuses”.

But I wouldn’t buy one as I know from experience that 12 months is not a long time when it comes to organising a group ride and its notoriously difficult to get a booking when you want there anyway.

Yeah they’re within their rights, but we all know it’s a mean thing to do making the expiry date so short and refusing to honour it. How does that sit with them always saying “we’re not a faceless corporate firm, we’re bikers just like you”?

See, I’ve had great service from BPW, Antur and FoD uplift guys when I’ve made internet bookings, paid obviously and then realised I can’t make the day for whatever reason….in some cases I’ve phoned and spoken to someone and other times I’ve just emailed but all of them have happily moved me to a day I can get to….maybe it helps that as I work shifts I tend to book midweek slots but either way they’ve all been brilliant.

There is no legitimate reason a gift voucher should have an expiry date. [/I]

As long as you recognize the liability in your accounts, although once inflation comes back you’ll find business may shorten the length of time vouchers are valid for.

mcnultycop – Member

I’m not sure why anyone would every buy someone a gift voucher. Either put some thought into something and buy someone a gift or give them cash.

Thinking “this is something they’d really enjoy but probably wouldn’t spend money on/cant afford/wouldn’t think to do” and also helping ensure cash can’t just be frittered away – not seeing the problem myself

How many out of date vouchers have you had redeemed elsewhere?

The time to have asked was before it expired – sob story about being injured may have got a reissued one for the following year. Not showing up with it, having asked already about redeeming an expired voucher over email.

although once inflation comes back you’ll find business may shorten the length of time vouchers are valid for.

Not too sure about this as an argument.

£30 gift voucher buys £30 worth of goods/services at point of sale.

1 year later at 5% inflation it only buys about £28.50 worth of goods/services.

That’s how I was thinking of it too.

Or are the vouchers for 1x uplift day, the price of which to deliver may rise for BPW over time?

A friend of mine from Finland had dodgy customer service from them also. He booked online and emailed them asking to swap over his brakes on his hire bike. They said no problem. When he picked up his bike the brakes were not swapped over and on asking them again to switch over they said they were too busy. He did 2 runs, didn’t feel comfortable so left disgruntled and £150 poorer.

They are so busy customer service is obviously not their top priority.

1) OP should have got it deferred before it expired
2) they’re within their rights
3) it’s still poor customer service, I’d be miffed if I was the OP (whilst ‘1’ is a nice idea life gets in the way) and if I was the business, and the OP is part of a group, I’d have honoured it. That’s potentially a bunch of customers, not just the OP, they’ve alienated.

You either accept that vouchers have an expiry date or you don’t.

I don’t think they are displaying poor customer service. They are doing what they agreed to do. You are the one who wants something else.

@reggie. No one disputes their right to issue vouchers with an expiry date. Only whether it’s right to do so. BPW could easily choose to have a 2 year limit a monthly deduction after 1 yr to take inflation ect into account, or have no time limit like some retailers. The fact they don’t is a discredit to them, so I say shame on BPW 🙁

They are doing what they agreed to do

Having happily pocketed the cash.

There’s a reason that the government feel it necessary to get involved in gift vouchers; if BPW were still waiting for the money they would be a lot more flexible.

I doubt somewhere that sells out 200 places 3 months in advance on weekends really needs to be pandering to people bleating on about bad PR.

They have rules, you stick to them or you forfeit.

They have rules, you stick to them or you forfeit.

They might have rules, but no-one has really been able to come up fro a reason for this particular one.
Similar to the ardrock refund policy.
Just because the rule exists doesn’t mean it’s good, or fair.