“Appalling! Bought a 2 night hotel break, very limited choice, wanted me to upgrade. One place I tried permanently closed, another not dealing anymore with buyagift. Customer service non existent. Will never use again. I'll give cash in future.”
“Do not use buyagift. They advise options, such as meal for 2, that are not available, and not affiliated with that venue, limited or no options at all, or change them on a daily basis with no warning.
We were gifted the "cinema and meal for 2" option.
The cinema only posts showings a few days in advance, that's fine, most do. so we found a showing we wanted, went on the website, got our booking code.
The booking codes have which has to be used in 30 days despite the 1 year exchange window for the voucher.
There apparently is only 1 restaurant in our city, Leeds, and it was not the same as what was offered in their booklet that came with the voucher, or on their website when ordering.
I contacted the restaurant and now dealing wih what appears to be a company that has no idea really what I am talking about.
I went on the buyagift website again today to get a picture of the deal BuyAGift was providing, and that restaurant has gone and now only 1 of the 6 actually available in the booklet is available, despite Leeds having branches for 4 of the ones provided.
Also, the process for getting booking information seems to have changed overnight too, so I have no idea if what I have done so far is going to work.
I have yet to get a response from buyagift.com after filling in their complaints form, I have no interest in dealing with a chatbot.”
“I was gifted a Gluten Free Baking course, which I didn't manage to use in the 12 month limit so extended it. When I went to book it, I finally got hold of the lady who runs them to be told she was so terribly sorry, but she retired 5 years ago and had been asking buy-a-gift to take it down.
This was not just the experience had stopped after the voucher had been purchased, which I would have accepted, this was the experience stopped a good 3.5 years prior to the voucher been purchased!!
When I went on to live chat, I was told by Ian, sorry you can't have a refund as it's outside 30 days, and I had to rebook to something different.
Only when I reiterated they were selling something that no longer existed, did he decide a refund was possible. I now need to get the person who bought it for me to contact them and ask for a refund. It was not fair them paying £80+ for an experience I was never going to be able to use.
I will not be using buy-a-gift again, or recommending them to anyone.”
“See all the other reviews. If you want to buy someone a gift give them the cash rather than use this site! Ended up paying £50 supplement even though I had a credit voucher which I’ve now written off as lost money. Infuriating!”
“Bought vouchers for a Spa 2 years ago. We could never find a date that Ballantynes was available when we were free. We paid for a years extension hoping that we had just been unlucky with our dates. However, there was still no joy. We asked for assistance from Buyagift multiple times but we never received a response. Whilst it was Ballantynes inability to help us, my Contract was with Buyagift, and their service was truly abysmal. If i could give zero stars i would. I will certainly advise anyone never to buy vouchers.
Predictably Buyagift responded to my review by telling me to contact customer services- as if i havent tried that multiple times over 2 years with absolutely no response. I lost £80 which i asked to be refunded: again no response to that either.”
“Absolutely rubbish , we had a gift voucher for Christmas and for hotel break cannot get anything at all that is anywhere near decent . Customer service is rubbish and cut you off on their online chat . Cannot get anything on there at all worthwhile .”
“Do not buy one of the most unreliable vouchers out there, when you try to redeem, you have to pay more money out, it cost us an extra £20 just to go to the cinema, with £40 voucher, you have so much trouble on line trying to book. AVOID AT ALL COSTS”
“Absolutely awful!!
My mum bought myself and my husband the “2 night luxury getaway” and spent good money on it for our Christmas gift. We cannot find anything above crappy pub inns/back and beyond B&B’s - nothing in any of the various areas we have tried. There is simply nothing luxury about any of it. Awful website, awful customer service.
WHSmith(where the voucher was purchased) are refusing to refund us and pushing us back to Buyagift. Buyagift pushing us back to WHSmith.
It’s an absolute con and I am furious that my mum is stressed and upset that the gift she thought would be really lovely for us, has turned into her being hugely out of pocket at this stage.
We haven’t used the voucher, we can’t get anything booked and will not even entertain the idea of being forced to pay £100’s extra just to try and secure a half decent hotel.
Next step is to try WHSmith head office/complaints department(wish me luck)
No one wants to take responsibility and sort the refund for us.
Do not buy these vouchers!!!”
“Utter nonsense from start to finish ...
firstly the buyagift site diesnt even have date availability or calendar of any event to choose so basically you pay buyagift to do nothing !!! because you then have to call the venue yourself to make a booking !!
so your paying buyagift for something you could have done without using buyagift!!
Buyagift has no customer care , no contact number on site, no live chat available...complete nonsense from start to finish.
dont waste your time or money and just call the event site directly and cut these chancers out of the deal altogether...
Cant wait to see what twaddle their replies on here state....”
“Beware of this people.
Bought a voucher experience and my booking date was cancelled by the restaurant because they were closing.
When I tried to contact buy a gift for a refund I only got through to an online chat with recorded q&a so I didn’t get anywhere. I find this company’s customer services really bad, in fact it was useless to me.
I will be enquiring about my legal rights to a refund.”
“I just wanted to raise awareness. My sister, despite being a nurse and low wage; plus me telling her not to buy me gifts, bought me a Buy-a-Gift voucher box. As the expiry was approaching, I thought it was time to use it. I'm reasonably tech savvy, so the level of frustrations I experienced with trying to redeem it, I felt the best place for the voucher was the bin. We only had £49 to spend, so we ate two meals at ASK Italian. Simply put, we cannot redeem it. Went round and round in circles with Customer Service. You cannot write, email or call to complain. The only option is via Chat option. I've kept my transcript, and the customer service person could not resolve it. They then suggested I pay £20 to extend it. I pointed out it was an issue with their system, and they extended it for a further 12 months without a fee. I was told it would be resolved, and I would receive an email shortly. No email. I tried to go onto the customer service Chat this morning, but they are closed due to staff training. I would suggest people do not purchase these vouchers from Buy-a-Gift.com. The narrow customer service options, for me, dictate the type of company you are dealing with. It feels like a modern scam to me.
The voucher is now in the bin; it's not worth the time or frustration.
This company operates a legal scam; you've been warned. Avoid at all costs.”
“Please urge family and friends to give cash or buy you hotel/restaurant vouchers directly rather than wasting money with this terrible service!
We were bought this gift by some friends who know we often travel back to Buckinghamshire and who were drawn by the inclusion of a hotel we like in Milton Keynes (the Woughotn House Hotel). Not only is this hotel not available (despite having a page devoted to it in the booklet) there is no nearby alternative unless someone wishes to stay at Newport Pagnell Motorway services (The Ramada) - I kid you not!
With friends having spent money on the voucher for us we were determined to try and make use of it. Our second problem was the dire booking system. You can't simply input your choice of location and then choose from the various hotels available. Oh no, instead you have to opt for one of the hilariously named headings and then trawl through each of these individually (I say hilariously named because words such as indulgent, luxury etc are used for hotels that are so bad their own websites include such clangers as 'The Real Fawlty Towers').
Having spent the best part of 2 days trying to find somewhere within a 50 mile radius and finding only the afore-mentioned motorway hotel, and a couple of hideous places you wouldn't board your dogs in the Hertfordshire/Berkshire area, or a couple above pubs in Northamptonshire that genuinely look like you'd be staying in someone's not very well thought-out spare room, we've drawn the conclusion that this is a complete rip off! Our friends paid good money for something we can't use and even if we could find something most of it involves us spending more money to upgrade!
Unless you want to travel to places such as Norfolk, Cumbria, Devon or North Wales (nothing wrong with any of these places it's just that they're all miles from anywhere!) then you're stuck with accommodation that you really wouldn't tolerate on a work overnighter. How they can put these under the titles of luxury that they do is anyone's guess.
Urge people not to waste their money and buy a voucher directly with hotels/restaurants of your choice instead. This is a real cowboy operation! I would give zero stars if that was an option.”
“Its a con, keep well clear. Give the person some cash instead.
You book a what you think is a reasonable deal then told you have to pay another upgrade fee on top of the one you already paid.
Complete scam”
“What a con. I wanted to extend my voucher, which was from £20, that’s so wrong but I accepted that. When I tried to extend they then wanted an extra £51 for “uplift charge” This uplift charge is supposedly the difference between the price when originally purchased and the price now. The price now is actually cheaper than when first purchased so how does that work? No surprise you cannot contact them by phone. Also tried live chat, haha, I’ve been waiting in queue position 5 for half a hour now. I used to buy all my kids vouchers from these every Xmas and birthday but not any more”
“I just wanted to raise awareness. My sister, despite being a nurse and earning a low wage, bought me a Buy-a-Gift voucher box last Christmas. As the expiry was approaching, I thought it was time to use it. I'm reasonably tech savvy, so the level of frustrations I experienced with trying to redeem it, I felt the best place for the voucher was the bin. We only had £49 to spend, so we ate two meals at ASK Italian. Simply put, we cannot redeem it. Went round and round in circles with Customer Service. You cannot write, email or call to complain. The only option is via Chat option. I've kept my transcript, and the customer service person could not resolve it. They then suggested I pay £20 to extend it. I pointed out it was an issue with their system, and they extended it for 12 months without a fee. I was told it would be resolved, and that I would receive an email shortly. No email. I tried to go onto the customer service Chat this morning, but they are closed due to staff training. I would suggest people do not purchase these vouchers from Buy-a-Gift.com. The narrow customer service options, for me, dictate the type of company you are dealing with. It feels like a modern scam to me.
The voucher will probably end up in the bin, and it's not worth the time or frustration.
Update today, just seem a small transaction from Buy-a-Gift.com for £9.01, not authorised. Just spoke to credit card company to reverse the transaction. You’ve been warned.”
“could give less than one star I would. Buyagift Sold me an experience that doesn’t exist and then delayed refunding me whilst they “investigated” and then again as they tried to negotiate with a third party …. and then offered me alternative experiences that either needed me to pay more money, or were located 100s of miles away. Really disappointed and now won’t have any chance of spending time with my daughter before Christmas.”
“I paid for an experience offered on the website.
Within 20 minutes I tried to redeem my voucher.
The website said the experience is no longer available.
The experience was available to purchase on the main website at the same time and still is 24 hours later.
I spoke by chat, as there are no other options, to first agent Roseleen, having taken approximately 20 minutes to respond, she said the experience is available and the chat ended.
I tried to redeem again and the experience wasn’t offered, although it’s still available to buy.
I spoke with another agent approximately an hour later, Matthew, he confirmed the experience isn’t offered and he could exchange my voucher for CREDIT voucher that can be used only on buyagift website for other experiences of the same value.
I refused and asked for a refund.
Matthew started the refund process that will take up to 30 DAYS!
In summary, buyagift took my cash for experience they couldn’t deliver at point of purchase, then they offered a voucher limited to their website. Agreed to refund that will return to me 30 days later.
This case has been referred to Trading Standards.”
“Disgusting fraudulent service.. was bought a voucher .. chose a voucher to use and had so many issues trying to redeem this. Contacted them numerous times with no help.
I would advise anyone wanting to buy a gift .. DONT
Customer service rubbish. No telephone number, so it’s a chat service which is so poor.”
“Terrible service. No contact phone number or email. Don't waste your time or money!
Terrible service.
No phone number
No email
No complaints dept or email or phone
Fobbed off with refer to T's and C's
They are marketing rooms which don't exist. Wasted 2.5hrs of my time booking one of 6 rooms available on their site and at the hotel, but the system says they are unavailable.
Live chat unable to offer any help or escalate my complaint.
Possibly the poorest experience of any web based business I have come across in the last 30 years.
The 'one' star, would be lower...but it doesn't let you!
Avoid buying these vouchers and give money or book direct with the venue is the lesson/take home from this!”
