Restaurant Gift Cards
 

My sister gifted me a $30 card for Christmas to be used at a local (to me) bar and grill.
Today, for lunch, I went there with only two cards in my pocket...drivers license and the gift card.

My lunch of a sandwich, fries, and a beer came to $16 with tax. I handed the gift card to the waitress and said I wanted to include a tip with the food payment. She said she needed to
scan my card first and took it.

She returned and had a print-out of the balance of the card which was $14 after todays food and said the only way I could leave a tip off of that was if I used the entire balance ($14) for the tip....wtf?

I had no green cash or credit card with me and was not wanting to leave $14 tip for a $16 meal.....so I left without leaving a tip.

I've used gift cards numerous times and it was always easy to add a tip in....but not at this place. Next time there I will bring a cc and double up the tip.

Is this a common practice with restaurants?

Not from my experience.

Gift Cards are a big money maker for restaurants....lots of the cards are never used or lost.

I can't believe that they couldn't pull a tip amount off of them. (if it was noted)

I would always want amounts for less than I'll use. Last two restaurant gift cards I got were for $100 each for restaurants I really don't care for and, even having Mrs. Lee with me, we could not spent the $100. I'm not going back to spend the remainder on the cards.

They were probably not telling you the truth

^^^ Rick
That's why I used the $30 card for a $16 lunch.
I figured on the second time using it, I would need added cash or CC.

I wondered about that. She looked honest, but you never know.

tell them you aren't leaving a tip then. see what that does to the attitude.

^^^ that's basically what I did, without saying it to the waitress.
I don't like doing that and I'm thinking of calling the place and asking some questions.

I haven't used a restaurant gift card in a long time. I just googled with mixed results. Some say you can use the card to tip, some say you can't. I would send the restaurant a nice email from their web site and explain the situation to get clarification. A local gift card may be different from a chain.

^^^ I might do that...or call them.
The thing that confuses me is that she said "If you want to leave a tip off of the card..it must be the whole remainder"
It just doesn't make sense.

If it would have been a $100 card....the tip would have been $84 for a $16 meal?

She wanted you to leave cash. Any other form of tip is reported income and shared with the rest of the house. Cash is "tax free" to her and not necessarily shared.

^^^ If so...she risked a $14 tip against a zero tip. I might have fallen for a $6 tip...but that's it.

I hardly ever carry cash anymore.
I don't want my name on the wall of the restaurant for "best tipper ever" :)

I think her reply was total BS .

Bingo...but it got her the money, right?

Yep, sounds like a load of sheiße to me.

Although it is possible that the restaurant could/would have that policy. It's entirely possible that the restaurant figures "we want the gift cards to be for restaurant sales/profit only." If you give the restaurant $50, but they only get $40 of that, they're potentially grumpy thinking "we wanted the whole $50 for 'the house'."

It would not be surprising for a restaurant to figure "screw the waitstaff."

She was probably hoping to force the $14.

You needed to give her this...

https://media.makeameme.org/created/...ose-poorly.jpg

Actually no she got nothing .

^^^ Correct....I was planning on leaving $3 and left leaving nothing.

15% of $16 is $2.40
My intended tip of $3 is above the median.