Some advice with gift cards!

I posted this story in the facebook group yesterday, but then there was more and it’s pretty important info. My mom happened to mention to me at lunch yesterday that she was going to pick up new blinds at Home Depot – I thought was a perfect way to score with some shopper’s points for her. Off she went to 2 shopper’s to pick up a ton of gift cards (using the promo spend 150$ get 8000 points) – She drove all the way to Home Depot, and none of her dozen gift cards would work! They all showed a zero balance – the staff at Home Depot was great, they phoned Shopper’s for her – who told her the cards had been scanned through properly etc.

Anyway, after a few phone calls, and some info from Home Depot it ends up that some gift cards are actually not active until the next day! She returned to Home Depot today and it all worked out. Just wanted to make sure to share this story, in case anyone else was doing something similar. Not sure if this is for all gift cards, I actually haven’t used any of ours on the day we’ve bought them. It was a stressful way to learn this lesson! Has this happened to anyone else? Anything else we should know about buying or using gift cards?