Works for me wednesday!

I wrote earlier in the week about the use it or lose it aspect of gift cards as more and more retail establishments fall into bankruptcy. In keeping with this theme - something I learned the hard way with gift cards and vouchers is definitely “use it or lose it”.

Or at least be careful in how you use it.

I’m a listener to Public Radio; a contributor, too. “Back in the day” as my parents would say, you could get a real deal as a contributor to your local station. There are some decent gifts now, too, and you can also decide to not accept a gift and increase your donation to the station by that much more.

Sometimes they run contests. One year, I won. Two round-trip plane tickets, whooohooo! I had plans to be married within a year or so, and figured I’d use the tickets then. My letter came in the mail and I filed it carefully away (mumble mumble big pile of papers here or there). I called the airline a few months later only to find they’d gone out of business.

Another time I was given two unlimited day passes on the local commuter rail system. Not bad at all. I offered them to a co-worker as a free way to try the system. Thankfully, he turned me down, and I ended up using them myself on a couple of occasions when I forgot my wallet. Even more thankfully, there were no ticket checks on those days. Looking more closely at the stubs I realized the tickets had expired a few years earlier. The station was digging back pretty deep into that prize closet.

Got a gift card? Won a prize? Use it or lose it, man. Use it or lose it.

For this and other Works for me Wednesday ideas, check out the mothership of WFMW: rocksinmydryer.net.