Saturday, January 5, 2008

My bargain guardian angel

Those of you who know me best, will know that I LOVE getting good deals on things. I not only search them out, hunt them down, and spear them, I won't rest until I FIND them! Whenever I've found a good deal without looking for it, I've always said I had a "bargain guardian angel" watching out for me.

Well, I must have offended her. Or something.

Mistake #1 - iTunes
My wonderful brother-in-law, Collin, got me a gift card to iTunes for Christmas. Thank you, Collin! My wonderful husband, Jim, got me a NEW Macbook for Christmas. Thank you, Jim! Well, the folks at Apple found it in their infinite wisdom to turn on a feature in iTunes called "one-click ordering". Which means that as soon as you click on "buy album", the music downloads IMMEDIATELY! And with a new computer, it downloads, FAST!

So fast, that you don't have time to read the BACK of the giftcard. Which informs you that you are supposed to "redeem" the gift card BEFORE you purchase any music. So I now have a new album in my itunes, a charge on my bank account, and PLENTY of credit at itunes that shall remain unused, at least for now.

Mistake #2 - Dining out
As a small perk of my new job, one of our clients gave all of us (even those he didn't know or hadn't met) gift certificates to his restaurant! Last night, Jim and I got a babysitter and headed out for our first date in a LONG time. As we are waiting on our food, which was taking forever to get there, Jim looks over at the gift certificate. He says, "uh, honey, we can't use this." I'm like, why? He points out that the certificate says "Valid only at springdale location". AAAAHHHHH!!!!

So, I'm 0 for 2 in the gift card department. Well, that's not entirely true. I got a JCPenney gift card from Jim's parents for my birthday, and I used that on some new shoes. I also got a Sonic gift card at our office Christmas party and used it for Happy Hour drinks the other day. So I guess I'm running at a 50% success rate. Maybe now, I'll READ these things before attempting to use them.

Any one else have a bad gift card experience?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

oh man!

but, i guess at least you can still look forward to another dinner out with jim! :0)

and, yeah, i hate when stuff like that happens! especially when you have a gift card & you think you have more money on it than you really do & you go to checkout & there was only like $5 or $10 dollars left. really bugs me!