Just in time for the holiday season, Alta Mere Automotive Outfitters and other franchises in the Moran Family of Brands recently introduced gift cards to purchase for your friends, family and loved ones. Gift cards make the perfect gift for the person who is picky about what they want but would like to do something with their car. What's great about Alta Mere gift cards is that that they can be used not just at any Alta Mere franchise, but also any Moran franchise. That way, if your niece wants her windows tinted and has money left over to have her oil changed, she can visit a Milex Complete Auto Care and spend the remainder there. With all these options, here are some tips to help your recipients make the most of their gift cards.
Read the terms and conditions
The fine print may not be the most enjoyable thing to read, but it's there for an important reason: It tells you the rules and limits on how the recipient can use the card. Most of the time, people won't run afoul of these guidelines, but there may be one special circumstance or another that you haven't thought of that causes some concern.
Register the card
A good idea is to hand, with the gift card, a receipt that shows proof you purchased the card. That way, if it gets lost or stolen, your friend or family member will be able to get replacement with the value of the card intact. Another way of handling this is to have your recipient register the card with Moran online. There are two important perks with this, in that the person will be able to recover or replace the card without needing an easy-to-lose paper receipt, and he or she can review transaction history and the remaining balance.
Treat it like cash
While gift cards are meant to be a great alternative to giving cash to a person, you should remind them that there's money on the card. Therefore, it can be used by anyone if it's lost or stolen. Since stores don't need to check identification when given a gift card, a stolen one is no different from one that's been given legitimately. If it goes missing, make sure the person calls Moran or the issuer as soon as possible to recover and replace it.
Pay attention to the expiration date, if necessary
Expiration dates are a common feature in many gift cards. When you give your gift card to someone, make sure you let them know that there's an expiration date attached to the card, and what it is. It's important to remember that when the card expires, they can no longer use whatever cash is remaining on there. Thankfully, at Moran, our gift cards have no expiration dates at this time.
Use it as soon as possible
Of course, losing a card can simply happen because the recipient misplaced it. He or she may have also forgotten they had a gift card in the first place, and when this person recovers it, it is either expired, inactive, or requires a fee. To avoid this from happening, make sure that when you give the gift card to tell the person receiving to redeem it as soon as possible. In the case of using a gift card at Alta Mere, remind him or her that they wanted to have a back-up camera installed, and the money can be used toward that. Given they can use it at a Milex or Mr. Transmission, ask them if he or she has done an oil change recently. Any suggestion to make sure it gets utilized works.
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