Did Caesars shit the bed, or am I being a difficult Jew?
I recently went to Caesar's for a promotion where I was promised "a $400 Visa gift card".
You could pick up your gift card any time within a two-day period. I could not make it there until near the very end of the pickup time.
When I arrived (within the pickup time specified), they told me, "Sorry, but we ran out of higher denomination gift cards. We only have $50 cards left, so here are eight of them, totaling $400."
They admitted that the original plan was NOT to force guests to take a large number of small-value gift cards, but that they had no choice because they ran out by the end.
When I objected, they gave me an attitude and told me that I received my $400 as promised, so I should STFU and stop bitching about it. (They didn't use those words, obviously, but that was the message.)
Frustrated, but with no recourse, I gave up and walked away with my 8 $50 cards.
So what's the problem?
Think about it. How would you like to need eight different VISA cards just to spend $400? That's a supreme pain in the ass.
Examples:
Say I have a $135 utility bill. I need to pay that with 3 gift cards at $50 each. I would have to go through the cumbersome job of not only submitting 3 payments (each with different credit card numbers), but also "setting up" each card on the gift card's website (entering all my personal info, etc).
Say I go to a $200 dinner with my girlfriend. I would have to whip out four different VISA cards to pay for it -- highly embarrassing, and something I wouldn't do.
So other than small purchases here and there, these $50 cards are a huge pain.
Can I deal with it? Yes.
Should I have to? No. Keep in mind that Caesar's buys a SHITLOAD of these for their various promotions, but for some reason only buys them "as needed", so they try to estimate how many they'll need and often fall short. They could easily over-buy the cards, knowing that the unused cards could be used for the next promo, which is likely within a very short time.
Do I have a right to bitch about something I'm getting for free? Yes, because I earned this promotion by playing heavily there. They aren't just handing me free money because they're feeling generous.
So what do you think?