Buyagift
Reviews and Complaints

My daughter bought us a voucher last Xmas for a 2 night memorable break (around £150). Having just tried to book we have found that the voucher doesn't even buy us the cheapest experience (ie afternoon tea) on teh whole website. The 2 night break at a hotel which if booked direct with the hotel costs £200 for 2 nights on Buy a Gift WITH the voucher it is asking for another £202! This makes 2 nights actually £350 with BuyaGift - what a rip off!.
I tried to deal with customer service but their scripted answer is inflation blah! try the website again blah! oh dear sorry blah! No option to actually book anything. Even a budget afternoon tea is asking for a minimum of £10 more than our voucher making that afternoon tea £160! I have had vouchers before and had no problem since. I would say book up any vouchers straight away as they are fraudulently devaluing the vouchers to make them unusable without giving the experience in return for the money paid

I bought this as a gift for my Son in Law’s and Daughter back in March this year from WH Smith. This was The cost was £120. The wording on the package makes you believe that this gift covers the cost of the various activities/stays with this voucher. However, on downloading the choices available, my daughter found that apart from

“Learning how to fillet a fish “ there was very little available that did not require more money to be paid in addition to the £120 I had already paid. Even a Spa treatment for 2 required £50 extra payment, which seems rather excessive. This is not what I expected when I bought the gift and I am extremely angry and embarrassed with this incredibly dissapointing gift. As it has been over 30 days since I purchased it, I realize you will not refund, but hope you can give me some satisfaction for the £120 which I have spent with your company. I look forward to your reply. Yvonne Sawyer

Bought vouchers to use for Teamsports from buy a gift. There was no where on the voucher said they could not be used on Friday. I couldn’t book the event and hence asked to have a refund. Contacted them twice over past one month and still haven’t received the refund. I even asked Teamsports to write to them to confirm vouchers were not redeemed but still have not heard back or received refund of £158.

I gifted the e-certificate to my Daughter, who could not use it for anything. Everyplace she tried refused it. She has since left the UK. In requesting a refund, I am being told they can not.

Giving me a credit I can not use on a site doing business 4000 km away is insane. See request Buyagift request #1801577

Transaction information (January 16th, 2023) :

Invoice ID

B30247670

DESCRIPTION UNIT PRICE QTY AMOUNT

£100 Buyagift Money Voucher £100.00 GBP 1 £100.00 GBP

Subtotal £100.00 GBP

Total £100.00 GBP

Payment £100.00 GBP

Charge will appear on your credit card statement as "PAYPAL *BUYAGIFT"

Payment sent to [protected]@buyagift.com

Payment sent from hinckley.[protected]@gmail.com

Funding Sources Used (Total)

Visa x-3045 $133.19 USD

PayPal's Conversion Rate: 1 USD = 0.7508 GBP

Converted From: $133.19 USD

Converted To: £100.00 GBP

I bought a voucher for my son, and during covid he was unable to use it, so it was extended, then changed to something else. the new use for the voucher I.E food, was messed up so many times, that my son, who the gift was for ( suffers from depression and high anxiety) asked for a refund.

They begrudgingly agreed, and I have all the transcripts of the conversations, yet even now after 3 months and a promise of repayment they now, are not paying up.

they have very bad reviews for this sort of thing...clip from their transcript

Joe

I can confirm that your refund of £86.01 has been processed and the funds will return back to the account used on the purchase. Please allow up to 30 days for the process to be complete, this is in line with lead processing times of your bank.

The hotel was filthy. Our room smelt. There was a rubbish tip outside of our window. We had a filthy mattress outside of our door. The bed was filthy. The carpet had to be seen to be believed! The bathroom was filthy. Mirror had dirty finger marks all over it! We were kept awake by a wedding party until the early hours. Cars were wheel spinning around the carpark until early hours. I have photos of the hotel as evidence. This was supposed to be a treat for my husbands 40th birthday and unfortunately was far from it! Health & safety is non existing at this hotel! The one staff member that we did see was very unapproachable. My photos won't upload as it says unsupported format could I please be advised so you can see these photos?

We brought gifts for our family last Christmas and we have still not been able to redeem the vouchers, we have wasted hundreds of pounds. i have tried to contact them via phone email and live chat but its ridiculous. This company is getting away with fraud and noone seems to be interested in helping?

We booked two hotel 2 night luxury breaks and a spa day.

The links do not work and i need to speak to someone

My Boss bought me a voucher for my birthday which i did manage to speak to someone about at buy a gift and changed to a more suitable restaurant nearer to me. I received an email from them with confirmation number BAG15117644 but i have not got the voucher ref or pin code to book I also am struggling entering the email address as tried ours and my bosses email, Cannot talk to anyone at buy a gift now as apparently on googling their number they do not take phone calls anymore, purely online and there automatic help chat just keeps throwing up the same answers and says is it resolved, Feel like my boss has wasted his money.

I have purchased a spa experience for 2 and have followed the instructions attached to my voucher, however none of the instructions and processes work and the site immediately directs me to a page where I only have the option to either buy MORE/Upgrade or Bank to use another day! I don't want to buy or bank I want to actually BOOK my spa experience with one of their providers. They haven't replied to my message and there is no link to their live chat even when I was trying to look into this issue during their stated business hours. Having read more reviews this company seems to be totally untrustworthy.

Hi I bought a voucher as a anniversary gift for my wife as she kept hinting at needing a pedicure, having checked the available location that carried out this treatment I found one close to where we live, when my wife went to book they advised they are no longer partners with buyagift and have told buyagift to remove them from their website on many occasions, we looked at another place and discovered that had closed down, we found another place but they don’t do the treatment and wanted an extra £40 for a massage, to me this is false advertising as I would not have purchased had the incorrect information not be advertised on the website. I just want a refund now, but no number listed for contact on the website!

I tried to use my experience which involved going online and generating a unique code to show to the restaurant. It did not generate the required code but told me to contact support. That is where the problems started. The help forum is a bot which only has a few stock answers which were unhelpful and there is absolutely no way to speak to a human being. They admit they do not have a manned phoned line so I have two identical experiences which I cannot use.

Hi, I purchased a For Mum gift voucher for my mother's birthday, with the intent of using it for an afternoon tea at Jameson's tea room, Sheffield. It was purchased in November 2022. I activated this 9 days ago and the afternoon tera was still an option, so I chose this and contacted the tearooms to make a reservation for the 21st May. then when I got there, they informed us that the booking that we made isn't showing up on their system and we still needed to choose an option. So I went on my phone, puzzled to try and do this again but it appears that the website has changed and Buyagift now want an extra £25 for this experience. My mum was very disappointed and this left me feeling embarrassed that my gift for her had gone wrong. I had to pay for the two afternoon teas which is unfair as I have already spent this money and it is an added cost when I am already facing cutbacks due to the cost of living crisis. My mum felt upset about this, ruining what should have been a nice meal out to celebrate her. Luckily, Jamesons were lovely and accommodating about this. To make matters worse, there is only one option I could get for the value of the voucher, a cinema with popcorn for 2 voucher, which contrasts the voucher which as of today (22nd May 2023) states to have over 2000 options to choose from. I would either like the voucher amending so I can claim my afternoon tea for 2 at Jameson's, or a full refund.

I received a gift for a luxury one night stay with dinner and fizz for two - reference 1097109-BUY23497435, expiring May 2023. I have tried twice to get the voucher reference and received [protected]-BAG14554736 which is for a one night country escape with dinner for two (no fizz or luxury) and [protected]-BAG14447584 (two night break at Mercure London Staines). I also paid an extra £18.99 on 28th November. I have tried to book several venues and several dates but all have been unavailable.

I have spent an hour and a half on the live chat online this afternoon and after speaking to two different advisors they have ended the chat.

As the voucher was a gift for a special birthday I do not want to waste the money spent on me and would perhaps ask for an alternative experience to the same value and have the expiry date extended.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards Cheryl Nicholls

Hello,

My husband brought me the above voucher for a spa break at haughton hall i have been trying for over a week to book this weekend, you try to call to be advised you need to send an email, you send an email no one gets back to you

i did have what seemed like an auto mated response to advise the dates that were not avaible.

Like i say its been over a week now and this stil hasnt been booked up to be honest being a hotel you would have thought there would be a recetion so you can actually speak to someone and not be advised i need to send an email

This is the first time we have purchsed anything from this site and its not a very good first impression.

I have a voucher.

I know where I want to go.

I would like to extend the 2 night stay by a further 2 days

However I need to know whether the hotel is still in business - as they do not answer phones - as i don't want to spend my voucher and then find I cannot do this nor do I know the cost of an extension.

There seems to be no way that I can talk to anyone at Buy a Gift.

Is the company a fraud?

PLEASE HELP

My voucher 1044126-BUY11457188

The voucher was a gift from my family before Lockdown began. I extended the voucher and due to covid was unable to book the experience and each time I tried to find a venue not too distant (we were limited because of the flying hours offered) there were no availability.

I was shocked to go back to the buyagift site to find I had redeemed my voucher.

This is not a gift to be recommended and I have yet to explain to my family why we never used the voucher.

Maureen and Ian Grant

Purchased my voucher for Indulgent Spa Day for two with treatments over 2 years ago. I've already paid to extend it as Virgin Active were fully booked until voucher expired.

I spoke on the phone to a representative who assured me more places would become available January 2023 and I would be notified through a phone call, no one has contacted me.

Phoned today and voice mail stated all spa days are booked until June my extended voucher expires 7th May.

Ref [protected]-BUY22431391

Pin 825937

Would like a refund and monies paid for extension, no availability to book.

My complaint is with Virgin Active, Solihull, Birmingham, England

Kind regards

Amanda Sumner

Thursday 19th January 2023. We bought a buy a gift voucher for 2 people for up to 55 minutes each of treatment at The Macdonald's Botley Hotel to celebrate a special birthday. We communicated with the Spa/leisure manager who booked us in for a facial each followed by a back massage each attaching our voucher in the email. When we got to the hotel, the Receptionist was extremely apologetic and said they only offer one treatment and use of the spa facilities with this Buy A Gift voucher. We were naturally very disappointed and have been misled.We were the 5th couple that morning at the hotel that had been duped by the Buy A Gift advert.

In December I browsed the website for a overnight spa stay for my girlfriend and I. I found a stay for 2 at lifehouse spa which was sold for £129.99.
They were offering a further discount so managed to get the experience booked for just over £100 which was great.

I received a vague voucher through the post not relating to the specific spa I had booked at all, thought nothing of it as surely the voucher code could be redeemed and I could book the spa.
After Christmas I logged onto the website to book the spa break to find that they wanted £117 surcharge to book the lifehouse spa?!?!?

I lodged a complaint on the website and have received nothing back at all I wouldn’t have booked the spa in the first place if it were over £200.
When I tried to replicate my purchase as a new customer I could see that what I had booked for £129.99 before Christmas was being advertised for £199.99, this didnt even explain the further increase in the surchage request.
I have been clearly mis sold, luckily I had taken screenshots to expose this company.