It's one of those things that consumer protection laws should fix. By law, most gift cards cannot expire in my province in Canada.
Gift cards purchased in Alberta are not subject to expiry dates and fees that lower their value over time. This includes cards purchased in Alberta on the internet.
Starbucks gift cards don't expire. It's standard account practice to recognize a percentage of your unused gift card balance as revenue as no company ever sees 100% redemption rates of gift cards. They call this "breakage".
I think that's also true in most of the US for first-party gift cards like Starbucks.
The typical offenders for expiration dates and/or fees are bank-issued gift cards that run via a credit card network. Does the Alberta regulation cover those?
Comments
It's one of those things that consumer protection laws should fix. By law, most gift cards cannot expire in my province in Canada.
https://www.alberta.ca/information-about-gift-cards.aspx
Starbucks gift cards don't expire. It's standard account practice to recognize a percentage of your unused gift card balance as revenue as no company ever sees 100% redemption rates of gift cards. They call this "breakage".
I think that's also true in most of the US for first-party gift cards like Starbucks.
The typical offenders for expiration dates and/or fees are bank-issued gift cards that run via a credit card network. Does the Alberta regulation cover those?
No. Those are unfortunately exempt.