Gift Vouchers Are Evil

Gift Vouchers… The dirty little secret of retailing. They are a little bit of magic. Shops have somehow convinced people to hand over their money in return for something which becomes literally worthless anywhere between 6 months and a couple of years later.

Or whenever you lose it, whichever comes sooner.

In the meantime, they get to have your hard-earned money sitting in their bank account, earning interest or financing the operation of their business. And in return for this, you, the gift voucher owner, the Lord of the gift voucher manor, get… nothing.

*Nothing*. Does that seem right to you? No. Nor us.

The Master of Malt gift voucher

You see, usually when you lend your money to someone (and that’s effectively what you’re doing when you buy a gift voucher), you get something in return. “Quid pro quo,” as our Roman friends would say, whilst checking each other’s togas for nip slips. Something to compensate you for not having the cash in your hot little hand. That thing, the thing loans give you, but vouchers don’t, is called interest.

And let’s just think about voucher expiry dates for a moment, shall we? How in the name of all that is good and intoxicating is it okay for you to hand over £20 in real proper cashey money, and get in return something which *expires*? When was the last time you saw a £20 note with an expiry date on it? What are they thinking?

We’re mugs, that’s what they’re thinking. And we think the whole thing stinks. As far as we’re concerned, gift vouchers which expire (ever) are just a fancy form of theft – there just isn’t any reason not to let people have what they’ve paid for. It’s just not cool.

You call that a gift voucher? This is a gift voucher.

Not your average gift vouchers

So we’ve made better vouchers that do those things. Our vouchers never expire, and they pay our own particular brand of delicious interest at 5% (compounded) per year.

Yeah, we know that’s a lot more than your bank pays; that’s because banks suck. For the life of us, we don’t know why no one else has done this, and we did look. We hope other retailers follow suit and put an end to the nonsense that is ‘traditional’ gift vouchers. In the meantime, we invite you to try ours. We think you’ll like them.

Plus,  we have both (super handy) e-gift vouchers and (fancy) physical vouchers available.

Yep, there are some terms and conditions which apply. Of course there are. It’s the 21st century. Also, our lawyer was looking bored and kept buying books on cage fighting, so we badly needed something less terrifying for him to work on. You can read the applicable terms and conditions to make sure we’re not going to turn up and insist you hand over your first-born or claim the right of Prima Nocta.

Lots of love,

Your friends at Master of Malt

P.S. All the vouchers that are already ‘out there’ started accruing interest as of the 1st of June 2015, and all expiry dates on them will be ignored. From now on, they’re subject to the same terms and conditions as the new vouchers. Enjoy!