VICE~VISA or When is $50.00 only worth $46.11 ?

They say never look a gifted horse in the mouth.Alas,if you are lucky enough to get a VISA gift card,you can't be that generous.

Our $50.00 gift card only had the purchasing power of $46.11.

Plus,the $4.95 activation fee,the real value of this gift VISA is only $41.16!

You lose $8.84 just using this awesome gift.

As a cautionary tale,I am forewarning you of the consequences of gifting this card to someone.

Here's my story:

I went out for a nice afternoon of shopping with my awesome wife,Robyn,my son,handsome Adam and his beautiful wife,Marissa.We went to the -not so local- Ikea.We decided to go out to eat afterwards at Smoky Bones BBQ.Of course,we went out to eat on our fantastic son,Nikolas and his wunderful fiancee,Ashley,via the fifty dollar VISA gift card that they gave us as a present.

After our meals,the bill came in slightly over sixty one dollars.I broke the unopened VISA out of it's packaging,slid in a twenty under it,and notified  our waitress we were using a gift card.I figured that would be just enough for our bill and an okay amount of tip.

WRONG.

The waitress came back with just 75 cents in change.

Whaaat?!?

She told us that the card wouldn't take as a gift card,only as a VISA{which I even had to sign for}.Not only that,the powers that be ( the device that scans and takes the card,I suppose ), decided that all customers at eating establishments would leave an 18% tip...ie..the $50.00 card would,therefore,only cash out at $46.11.

Which is fine,except that our bill was over sixty one dollars.Luckily,I had more cash than the twenty dollar bill on me.Or else either the waitress wouldn't have gotten a tip,or I would have had to bring out my Master Card just for the waitress' gratuity.

Not only that,but when we called VISA afterwords,they said that the rest of the money-in this case,the three eighty nine- would not be on the card until,at least,Monday or Tuesday.We were also told that a card would not always be accepted if the card was partially used unless it was used for the whole remaining total.

I know....I know,all minor inconveniences.And this story made our evening just that little more memorable.

Just saying.