“Couldn't find a deal that my voucher matched for the sane price, had to add extra to buy..even though I bought a spa break for my mother...such a massive con. Trying to use the website was so incredibly painful. I'd rather pick my own eyes out than have to experience that again. So I won't. Sorry Buyagift,being honest.”
“Awful, should get no stars. Great to sell something that you can't redeem without paying more. Might do same and take £200 for a cheap car then get charged another £1000 to redeem for a pair of second hand roller skates. Just a lie and con”
“ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS. I have been given 2 vouchers. One valued at £59 and the other at £103. If I want to book an alternative, the cost of any additional payment is exactly the same, whether I use the £59 or the £103 voucher! It seems to be a real con. If you go online to book the experience direct, it actually works out cheaper. Stupidly I paid extra to extend one of the vouchers and really regret this now. Complete waste of time and money and what was meant to be a gift has instead turned out to be a very stressful and disappointing experience”
“AVOID AT ALL COSTS! They keep your money hostage refusing refunds!
I've just had the most unbelievable experience with this company, which I'll detail here:
I wanted to book an experience last week which had a hotel I liked, so I bought the voucher for it.
Once proceeding to the hotel booking, I was asked to add £72 on top of the original price to book that specific hotel. So I looked online and found that I could book that hotel for way cheaper, so I asked for a refund.
After explaining the situation and asking for a refund, one of their agents literally tried everything in order not to make me proceed with the refund. In the end, he proposed me a 15% increase to my voucher which in my mind would've meant I'd have to pay less of the extra hotel money, so I accepted.
Well, once I got the new increased voucher and proceeded with the hotel booking, I saw that regardless of the voucher increase, I'd still have to pay £72 on top. So the increase just bumped up the value of my voucher, but didn't help me save money on the only experience I was interested in.
Contacted customer service today again in order to just get over with this and get a refund, and Emily told me that since I accepted a voucher increase I won't be eligible for a refund anymore, despite being well within the 30 days refund period.
She checked with her manager and they confirmed my refund is void cause I accepted an increase, which was nearly forced onto me by their agent without mentioning it'd have voided my refund. Their T&C also don't mention that so it's clearly a scam.
I have screenshots of our chat which I'm going to post on social media, but please avoid this company at all costs.”
“My son received a buyagift voucher for kidzania, I've been trying to book it and it constantly says the voucher has been redeemed when I know for a fact we have not used it at all. When looking for customer service live chat or a telephone number I can't find anything. Absolute sham.”
“Just give someone money instead of using this rip off company. I was given a voucher for a hotel stay and booked 6 months in advance. Due to unforseen circumstances, we could no longer make the dates we booked, so contacted Buyagift as the voucher said you could amend the booking if needed, only to be told that that wasn't true, and the voucher was non amendable. Also, the choice of destinations was very limited, and it took us a long time to find anywhere we wanted to go, and when we did, we had to put money towards it.”
“STOP NOW! DO NOT USE THESE ROBBING B4STARDS! What a joke from start to finish! Initial booking was for a company that ceased trading, then transferred tickets for a short stay at a hotel, had to pay a premium for the change then an additional premium for the hotel... Had an error on the date due to the confusing website, tried to change the date and after getting past the Bot! Got good for nothing, computer says NO George... Apparently you can't change the date "computer says NO!" Went on to another booking site and booked the room for the day we wanted, at this point we realised that the hotel was £60 a night, so the original £100 voucher + the additional £100 of payments, for something that if we had booked directly we would have saved £20.. Buy a gift, you'd be better off insulting the person your buying it for and throwing your money away.. Do not use this company!!!”
“Invariably there is more to pay, the web site is useless for pinning down what you need. Avoid at all costs, or buy it for someone you really do not like”
“Stayed at the Trouville hotel in Bournemouth and was the worse hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Please read my review
www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g186262-d295805-r902190800”
“PLEASE AVOID AT ALL COSTS. This company are beyond a joke. I purchased a two night weekend London trip through this outfit - the experience was described as "chose from a variety of luxury 4 and 5* hotels across London" everywhere - including their small print. AFTER the purchase, I received an alert telling me they were struggling with availability and suggested I book "off peak" (not the weekend) or a difference City... No mention of a refund for the non weekend, non London stay of course.
The only offering included was the Apple House Guesthouse (a shabby, tatty private room in someone's home a fifteen minute drive from Wembley (nowhere near a tube station). A Guesthouse is not a hotel... The only hotels available were The Colonnade for £30 more, or The Cranley for £66 more... PLEASE google the reviews and guest images of these hotels for a good laugh. Comments include "the only people visiting this hotel should be the Health & Safety Executive", "biohazard", and "I haven't stayed somewhere this bad since I was a skint student travelling cheap"...
Upon requesting a refund for this, I was told this wasn't possible, then it was possible but only partially, then I was offered a credit note, then back to a 50% refund... You can only talk to someone via live chat. Stephen (the deadbeat I had the displeasure of dealing with) didn't have a clue then asked me a question and quickly copy & pasted "I haven't heard for you in a while so I'm going to end this chat" immediately after sending. Sadly he didn't realize I was screen recording and his company time stamp the chats... Idiota. This service isn't exclusive to me - check their social media - full of people in similar situations who can't speak to anyone.
PLEASE spend your money elsewhere. Buyagift and Red Letter Day's are the same company. Use Virgin Experience Days. DO NOT believe the positive reviews. Imagine to gift someone you care about a "luxury" break and they are treated like this? Utterly repulsive. They have breached the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and committed several trading standards offences. I have reported them to Trading Standards and am submitting a Money Claim Online form (MCOL) - this only costs £30 and will enable you to claim your money back via small claims court - entirely online.
Use this outfit at your own peril.”
“Really awkward to use vouchers.. booked and hotel cancelled casting no availability even though I’d had confirmation.
Finally did book hotel and buyagift called me to say it was cancelled and then 30 minutes later called me again to say no it wasn’t..
hotel we finally booked and trust me it was really difficult, was dirty and staff really rude, inadequate air conditioning when it was 28 degrees outside.. it literally was cooler in the hallway than in our room..
had to leave early next day a day early as no sleep all night - buyagift refused to refund even though hotel was not fit to stay in with mould, stains and non working air conditioning.. AVOID!!!!”
“I had a voucher bought 2 night national parks had to pay extra £100 for a basic room. Would have been cheaper just booking direct. I also had another voucher for afternoon tea and exactly the same happened . That actually is running out I didn’t extend it as it was dearer than paying without voucher. Used to be good but won’t be using them again .”
“Absolutely waste of money
Kids bought us the “two night memorable break with dinner” voucher. Now this voucher is not cheap….. we found it MEGA difficult to book a hotel within the voucher price so ended up extending the voucher ( at an extra charge ) the voucher was finally used this weekend….. however we could STILL not get a hotel for the voucher itself so ended up paying an additional £143 to “upgrade” at The Grand, Llandudno.
The room was basic ( room 425 ) with a bed, en-suite dresser wardrobe and what can only be described as a kitchen chair…..the bed was very small and mega hard. The whole hotel is in desperate need of tlc ……. The floorboards creak like mad and I got no sleep with banging doors etc😢
Breakfast was adequate at best evening meals were disgusting with over cooked soggy veg…..total cost of 2 night stay £179.99 voucher, then £20 extension then £143 upgrade (£343 total) ……yet to book ourselves it would have been £250……absolutely ripped off….. we could not find a decent hotel within the voucher cost and even with £143 surcharge the hotels on offer are basic and need so much TLC.”
“I tried to extend my voucher but the cost to do this is astronomical
When trying to redeem me this voucher earlier every hotel I looked at incurred supplements.
I could not find one single hotel that didn’t involve supplements.”
“Absolutely useless! Think it’s a scam ! Apparently my voucher has been redeemed …DEFINITELY HAS NOT😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡. My friend also brought the same experience and being told the same . Dodgy and don’t even respond keep saying they’ll email …not received.”
“Got a driving experience gift card from these clowns called buyagift couldn't book up for this gift never got to use the voucher full on scam keep away”
“Extremely time-consuming to use. Copy-and-paste of voucher does not work; have to enter manually. Then, the redeeming of voucher with supplier did not work. Impossible to contact Buy-a-Gift to resolve this. Supplier closes down over the whole weekend so cannot contact them either. Extremely poor experience with Buy-a-Gift. Would not recommend to anyone. Avoid like the plague.”
