Red Letter Days - Muswell Hill, London Review

Overall Rating

My husband and his brother were given Red Letter Days vouchers for £500 each for Christmas and a 40th birthday in hopes that they could do something fun together. They received the vouchers on Boxing Day 2008.

As we live in the US, it was perhaps not the best thought out gift but both brothers had every intention of using the voucher and we were told we had 9 months to book. Finally, as we were planning a European holiday, we looked at the voucher to find out how to book only to discover that it had expired 3 weeks prior. Immediately we contacted the customeraction@redletterdays.co.uk and explained the situation, the geography, the current economic climate, etc. We received only an automated response saying they'd get back to us.

Still not having received a response 17 days later, we again contacted customeraction and forwarded the original email as well. We received a response the following day that basically said those were the rules and they have to honour their own policy!

How about honouring a customer who spent a significant amount of money? Yes, we missed the expiration date but as an earlier reviewer said, for that amount of money, you'd expect some consideration (and hers was only £150). We didn't ask for a refund, only an extension on the expiry by 3 weeks!

Poor customer service response and inflexible policies, combined with a number of untenable restrictions for the actual experiences makes Red Letter Days gift vouchers a foolish choice as a gift for anyone.

We would have had greater satisfaction from an M&S jumper.

NOTE: I only gave 1-star for each category as there was not an option for NO STARS.