Long story short:
Restaurant (Bar Santo, St Kilda VIC) refused to honour two vouchers (each being a two-person voucher) for three guests in one booking at one table.
Long story long:
Earlier last month, I made a booking at Bar Santo after purchasing some vouchers from Cudo. Each voucher said that it was for two people, however I purchased two vouchers with the assumption that two vouchers covering three guests (valid up to four people) would be more preferable than buying a one 2-people voucher to cover for three guests. I've done this many times before at other venues, so I didn't for a minute anticipate what was to come…
Then, upon receiving the vouchers (this was in March) I called the restaurant to make a booking for three people in mid-April. I explicitly mentioned that I would be using two vouchers for this booking and was informed that this would be fine.
In fact, I was tossing up between a number of days in April's third week so I called them numerious times about the one booking, settling on a definite day. This final date was confirmed a day after I made my first call to Bar Santo.
Every week after that I made a call to check that the reservation was indeed there, because it was an important event which I made the reservation for. During all calls I made, I maintained that there would be three people and that two vouchers would be used. I was still told that this would be okay.
Now, the day of the booking - it was a dinner booking, and the three of us (I was one of the three guests) turned up at the restaurant and thankfully, the booking was there. We assumed our tables, were given menus and told of the offer details and what we could and could not order. At this stage the waitress also asked for the vouchers which I handed over before ordering.
A little while later, the same waitress came to our table to take our orders. We ordered what we were allowed within the limitations of the offer.
About 20 minutes passed since we placed our order, and the waitress came back with the two vouchers, saying that we could not use two vouchers as we were three people - not four. She couldn't offer any more information so we asked to speak to the venue manager.
The venue manager also stuck to this viewpoint. It was her contention that as we were three people we could not use a voucher which covered up to four people. We told the manager that in that case we can use half of the second voucher but you can keep both as being redeemed, but she did not want to accept this either. In the meantime, the waitress came to the table and said that the entree was ready but the manager told her to wait.
The manager insisted that we definitely could not use vouchers covering four people, for a table of three. She was not even willing to negotitate. Then, she mentions that one of her staff processed both vouchers as having been redeemed, but that she would authorise on one of the vouchers by hand that it was effectively not redeemed and would be okay for later use.
It was the suggestion of the manager that we cancel the items ordered and only place an order for two people. To me this was not the right thing to do as the three of us were there and it would not be acceptable to order two meals and not a third. Then, the manager suggested that we cancel the entree and order three mains. At the end of the meal, she would add up the night's total, subtract the value of a single voucher and the rest would be payable as normal. She also added in that we would not have to pay for the entree, as it had not left the kitchen yet and that she would have it for dinner instead.
Reluctantly, this is what we did - we cancelled all items ordered except for the three main courses, and at the end of the night she gave back the second redeemed voucher with a note saying it was still okay for future use, we paid for the difference between the night's total and the first voucher, all the while watching her down the entrees which we had initially ordered.
So my question after all this… was this right?
TIA
KaptnKaos
They're retarded what the hell..
The only explanation that I could think of behind why they would do such a thing would be because they create these deals as a way of getting as many people as possible to experience their business, like they were wanting 4 people to experience it, increasing the possibility for potential revenue in the future.
BUT IN SAYING THIS, the fact that they refused to honour the voucher has lost them revenue and would defeat my theory.
I have no idea what they were thinking but they could have reacted worse to the situation and not offered to cancel the entree and not honouring either voucher.