Budget Freak

Let me preface this post by saying I absolutely love my Discover Card. I’ve had mine for over 7 years now, use it for nearly all my purchases, and, up until Saturday night, I’ve never had a single problem with it.

Last week I decided to cash in some of my Discover Card Cash Back Bonus Award for Borders gift certificate. You can turn $20 cash back into a $25 gift card. I’ve done this a few times over the years (they used to offer a $40 gift card for $20, but that was short lived), so this time, I traded in for two gift cards. This past Saturday, I went to Borders to purchase some books, went to checkout with my new gift cards, and was told the cards were inactive! The store tried calling the gift card hot line, but they were closed until Tuesday. So I was a little ticked off and a little embarrassed, but they offered to hold my books until I got the issue resolved.

As soon as I got home, I called up Discover to find out what’s going on. I got an account representative immediately and explained my situation. He was helpful and told me it was probably the the company that administers the gift cards. “Occasionally” they send the cards out without activating them. He said he’d credit the $40 cash back bonus, back to my account, and then resend out two new gift cards.

All told, I was fairly pleased with their response. I’m a little upset I had to go through with this at all (imagine if I had given these away as gifts!), but they handled it well. The gift cards should have gone out in the mail today, so it’ll be another week before I get the cards, so I’ll keep you updated. I guess the moral of this story is to call and check the balance before you drive to the store and spend an hour picking out books.

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