“We received a Buyagift voucher as a gift. The voucher was for a Two Night Memorable Break for Two including breakfast, with a choice of very many hotels/destinations. The voucher cost £140, unfortunately, we were unable to use it within the time limit of the voucher so I paid £20 to extend it until October this year (2023).
I recently went online to redeem the voucher, we had decided to go to a hotel near to Alton Towers and make an experience of it. I did my research on the hotels available through BuyaGift and rang our chosen hotel to check availability. Having confirmed they had a standard room availability I booked Alton Towers (we are passholders) and then went to Buyagift to redeem our voucher for our chosen hotel. On trying to complete the booking there was an extra charge of £87 without any explanation of why! Having already booked Alton Towers we had no other alternative but to complete the booking! According to the What I Need To Know paragraph an extra charge may be incurred if we wanted to upgrade to a better room or add any extra meals - we did neither!
I have been in touch with BuyaGift (and that was no mean feat!) but have got nowhere! One explanation was that since the voucher was bought, prices have risen and the additional cost has been passed on! Surely when you buy a voucher for a particular experience that should be honoured whether there has been a price increase or not! I doubt if prices had gone down they would reimburse the difference!
They have offered to cancel the booking - but having already booked Alton Towers we had to continue!
In my opinion BuyaGift is a rip-off!”
“brought what was ment to be a relaxing spa day voucher for my wifes birthday with Bannatyne spa, who then cancelled every appointment in a 6 month period,
went to buy a gift customer service who agreed to credit voucher back to use elsewhere, no credit arrived and then 2nd customer service person who was abrupt issued credit for less than what i paid stating thats what we paid despite it being less. wouldnt give complaints info stating were customer service we deal with complaints.”
“So disappointed not really many dates for my helicopter experience so asked to extend the voucher.. They said they would until end of May.. I tried booking again and the said the voucher had been redeemed ..it definitely has not been. So never be buying of here again lost my money 💰”
“I cancelled a booking experience with Buyagift.
On the live chat, they agreed a refund.
But that does not actually mean what you think it means.
All they do is pass your refund request to an "agent".
Who does absolutely nothing with it.
All you can do is contact your bank and try to get your money back through a chargeback.”
“Why are exactly the same tickets for Les Miserables significantly cheaper without the voucher from the Theatre direct than with the voucher through Buyagift? This must be a con.......when you have been given them as a gift you feel you are letting the giver down not using them, but agree with many of the previous comments just give money and at least it will genuinely go towards the cost of the tickets/experience.”
“The voucher gift experience I bought "no longer available". I then had to choose another, experience all at hugely inflated prices compared to the providers published prices Extremely Hard work to book anything on your site, there are no customer service contacts available and it s very difficult to find the online live chat .I won’t be using this anytime soon ,terrible customer service!
I really loved your company BUYAGIFT and I was your customer but now is shameful service!
I would like a full refund for my two vouchers
Veronica”
“Do not buy from them, Its a complete scam! You will be asked to add additional costs all the time or have your booked cancelled. I was even asked to add more for 1 night stay in a budget hotel, what a joke! How is that a luxury experience?
The fact you are still operating is shocking, this needs to be looked at and regulated because at the moment you're just freely scamming people. I bet 80% of your customer base are grandparents buying for their grandchildren who probably wont understand or read any of the reviews.
The marketing and branding looks great, you receive the gift and think "how amazing" but as soon as you deep dive and try to use their clunky website you'll soon realise you've been done over.
I am also not having for a second you have an 89% score. I wonder how many are bots.... 89%?
If you are reading this and thinking of buying one, please don't! Save your money and find another supplier or gift idea.”
“Absolutely disgusting excuse of a company. They are a scam! I had a gift voucher purchased for me for my birthday from a friend and I have not been able to spend the voucher due to 90% of the companies they claim to work with no longer accepting buyagift (I wonder why…). No areas close to me will accept the vouchers any longer so avoid buying this as they are completely fraudulent with their claims - they DO NOT work with the majority of third party companies listed on their website. Always go direct to the company for gift vouchers as what ends up happening is you waste time speaking to their customer service team who are not very useful and take a very long time to come back to you and they then do not resolve your complaint, and then you lose your money because it cannot be spent anywhere. Can someone please explain to me why a gift voucher cannot be refunded to ME, who was gifted the voucher, who has the voucher code, and why you state on your website that you work with companies when you don’t? I’d love to know the answer.
It’s false advertising, this company is a scam and should not be allowed to take your money. Avoid!!!!”
“I had a 50 pound voucher and added 85 pounds to it to see Moulin rouge. This only gave you the seats that are 49 pounds each if you book directly on the company website.
As I wanted a better view and chose the 69 pound seats I had to add an extra 30 pounds at check out so ended up oaying the same amount I would have booking directly.
Therefore the value of my gift card was completely useless!!
What a rip off”
“I booked a spa day with my daughter and to make the treat even more special I also booked the hotel for an overnight stay. I contacted the spa to confirm my booking and also tell them what treatments I wanted only to find the Buyagift, while confirming to me my booking had not confirmed this with the spa - disgusting. If I had left it then I would not have been able to give my daughter the treat she deserved following her double transplant! The hotel were very good and transferred my booking to a sister hotel and spa, but it is totally unacceptable that you cannot even phone Buyagift, instead it is all on-line, I would suspect because they get so many complaints! I have looked at there reviews and they are awful, the Spa manager told me that I am not alone this happens at least once aweek, where someone turns up and Buyagift have not reserved the spa. This is now the 6th time I have had problems with this awful company as my family think they are giving me a treat buying these vouchers. I have told them that they are a waste of money a total SCAM and not worth the paper they are printed on.”
“my grandson bought me a spa day which I did not want to do. I tried to change the voucher but to do so you have to pay more for a meal voucher than the cost of going for the meal would cost anyway so therefore you lose the £70 voucher you already have. I tried customer chat but louise who I chatted to was just not interested I would say DO NOT waste your money. You could buy direct for much less money”
“I am only giving this one star as the lady I wrote to on live chat resolved my issue otherwise buyagift would have got zero stars. What a terrible limited selection of hotels/hostels. Really hard work to find something without there being additional charges. Absolutely no spoken after-care, only online chat from 9:30 am. Head office do not take any calls. Very frustrating business. Managed to find a hotel that was cheaper on booking.com. Do not waste your time or money!!”
“Bought the Three Course Meal with Cocktails at Marco Pierre White London Steak House for Two with View from the Shard.
I can't book the restuarant offer more than 48 hours in advance!!! I can book now with £55 off the price of the meal, but as it's not a present - what is the avantage to me?
Also there is a supplement to go up the Shard!!!
Definitely not the offer it says it is.”
“I bought a dining experience in order to use it at Morston Hall which is close to me and has a Michelin Star. When I went to use it they no longer take the voucher and the closest similar option is in London 100 miles away! Trying to get in touch is a joke and the only solution is to select something else. Save your money and don't use these jokers as it is the second time that what I wanted has been removed.”
“So hard to actually book something and quite often the prices offered are much higher than if you were to buy direct. The experience I have a voucher for is no longer available and the alternatives being offered to me are WAY overpriced - they wants the value of my voucher (£30) plus an extra £18 for 2x tea and scones at a standard high-street cake shop chain - there is no way that this is anywhere near the actual cost that this retailer charges. it's complete scam and complete waste of money. They seem to just rely on people giving up and never using their "voucher". Scam - avoid!”
“I was given a voucher for a xmas present. Went to use it in January only to find that the offer was no longer available (experience removed from site) and i had to use it in the short break section only to find out that most of the hotels now needed an additional payment on top of voucher. Contacted customer service complaining about the issue and am still waiting for reply. Shall not purchase again”
“I got a gift card for my birthday last year. I haven't been able to use it so I extended the voucher on BuyAGift Website.
When I went to book my experience, the vendor would not accept my extended voucher as I'd not extended it directly with them and in addition to that they said that all their costs had increased and that I needed to extend directly on their site!
Did a live chat with Buy A Gift and the agent said to leave it with them and they'd get back to me. A week later still nothing!
Did another live chat again and this agent sent me a new voucher however on going through to try book my experience again, and validating my voucher it now says I can't access this voucher for 24/48 hours!
Really dissapointed in how much hard work this seems to be and is now putting me off using these guys and if my experience is actually going to be worth it if I can ever have it? I've had better service with other experience providers where this bookking process has been a breeze.”
“Purchased three Buyagift vouchers for 2 night weekend away experiences.
When we needed to register the vouchers, we found out that supplements where needed to get your codes to book.
Not good!!!
Beware”
“After buying a hotel voucher for £129 , when I went to actually book it I was told there was a £59 supplement. How on earth can that be right. No phone number to call, hotel not interested, a very slow process to chat. Would be cheaper to book the hotel direct so that’s what I will do next time. Waste of money and very misleading”
“Reedem a cheese box taster voucher received from a friend and they are adding £5 delivery.
Why would anyone buy a gift for someone who is then charged?!?
Don't bother with them”
