Gift Cards used to secure appointments, how is this done online without recipients needing to…?

[TheSPAaaht]

How does a gift card receiver use their gift card to secure their appointment online without having to insert their credit card information? It’s a gift, is there a work around using the value loaded gift card to secure the  and book the appointment?

[Gold · Accepted solution]

HI, according to this old thread it is not available.

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Read-Only-Archive-Square/Can-we-accept-egift-cards-through-our-Sq...

[TheSPAaaht]

Thank you so much for your reply and link to the conversation thread regarding this question. Which only leads to more questions… do you know if they are allowed to use the gift cards in the online store?

[Gold]

HI, here is the Square Support page for the cards.

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6000-square-egift-cards

[TheSPAaaht]

Adding on to this still not addressed scheduling feature. Square oh Square… can we at least get the clients a checkout option to use for their gifted gift cards cards along with the existing credit card checkout. This would omit the need for people to use their credit card to secure an online appointment for those gifted a gift card which you have encouraged us to promote and sell. It is one last step to making the online checkout process with a gift card more user friendly and modern. It’s now six years in asking for this feature and to no avail. I am asking why this is still a thing in 2023. Please create a space in checking out through online booking that gift card recipient can use their gift card code for checking out online once a person has chosen their selected service and stop forcing people to have to put in a credit card for a already paid for service!

replying to you as I received a response from a square moderator and they suggested I should tag people on this feature request.

[stlglass]

This is really absurd.

Square, please make it possible for gift card holders, both Egift cards and plastic, to pay for a full or partial Square appointment.  We can't promote the sale of gift cards because they can't use them to book the appointments.  Instead we have to tell them to buy a card, call us they we have to use a multi step workaround only available in one of the POS setups to apply the gift card.  It's maddening.

[JJ_]

Hey there @TheSPAaaht

Our team is very close to releasing updates to the Appointments Online Booking Site. I don't have any additional information or updates but I can tell you that they are making progress to make this possible. 

We will make sure to update here once the feature is announced and released. 

[TheSPAaaht]

Thank you for your response to this I felt like I was alone in this request. Hopefully they are close to releasing updates to the Appointments Online Booking Site, 🤞🏾

[TheSPAaaht]

Adding on to this still not addressed scheduling feature. Square oh Square… can we at least get the clients a checkout option to use for their gifted gift cards cards along with the existing credit card checkout. This would omit the need for people to use their credit card to secure an online appointment for those gifted a gift card which you have encouraged us to promote and sell. It is one last step to making the online checkout process with a gift card more user friendly and modern. It’s now six years in asking for this feature and to no avail. I am asking why this is still a thing in 2023. Please create a space in checking out through online booking that gift card recipient can use their gift card code for checking out online once a person has chosen their selected service and stop forcing people to have to put in a credit card for a already paid for service!

replying to boost as a share moderator suggested I should tagged people since it still isn’t a feature yet. I suggested as a feature they add a checkout button just for gift cards under the regular credit card button.  I tried to place this request in the feature request but to no avail.

[TheSPAaaht]

I am surprised this hasn’t happened yet. The original question on this was posted in 2017!  Here we are at the gift card giving season and my gift card sales have dipped due to this major inconvenience to givers and recipients alike. Square please make it possible it has been 5 years now, your users are still requesting for this feature in 2022, 

[StephanieStyle]

Adding my voice to this call. Gift card sales were promoted so heavily by Square prior to the holidays it's beyond disappointing that they can't be used to book an appointment online. I'm going to stop offering gift cards until this feature is added. It just causes more headaches for me, instead of making my life as a business owner easier. Sigh.

[TheSPAaaht]

@StephanieStyle Thank you for your input. It is beyond disappointing that the heavily promoted gift cards can’t be used to book an appointment online. It is such a headache the amount of back and forth when booking gift card clients. It is such an antiquated way of handling the transaction post the online purchase(the missed phone calls, leaving messages, more phone calls and emails written to respond to the messages and appointments requested). I am in the business of stress relief and this process is highly stressful and time consuming. The schedule is online to aid in efficiency but this detracts from me being efficient. It is also mind boggling that this has been not been corrected since 2017!!! Hopefully this feature will be added as the technology does exist for this to happen. Square please let us know you are listening, you hear us and have a solution ready to be implemented before the next gift card pushing season of Valentines Day❣️SMH  Please help us be great.

[StephanieStyle]

Thanks!

[StephanieStyle]

Some feedback on this: I had a client successfully use her gift card to book online. She her a Square account (customer) and uploaded the giftcard to her Square account, then she was presented with the option to use that gift card when checking out with me. It's not neat, but it does work!

[TheSPAaaht]

Thank you for sharing this. I gratefully have a population of people who do not use computers or have smartphones it I will keep this in mind for those who do use this technology.

[TheSPAaaht]

Adding on to this still not addressed scheduling feature. Square oh Square… can we at least get the clients a checkout option to use for their gifted gift cards cards along with the existing credit card checkout. This would omit the need for people to use their credit card to secure an online appointment for those gifted a gift card which you have encouraged us to promote and sell. It is one last step to making the online checkout process with a gift card more user friendly and modern. It’s now six years in asking for this feature and to no avail. I am asking why this is still a thing in 2023. Please create a space in checking out through online booking that gift card recipient can use their gift card code for checking out online once a person has chosen their selected service and stop forcing people to have to put in a credit card for a already paid for service!

[sayra]

Hello, @TheSPAaaht - Thank you for providing us with your feedback and suggestions regarding the scheduling feature and the use of gift cards during online checkout. We understand the importance of making the online checkout process more user-friendly and accommodating for customers who have gift cards.

We appreciate your patience in raising this request over the past six years. While we strive to continuously improve our services, it's important to note that the development and implementation of new features involve various factors. However, we understand the value of your suggestion and the potential benefits it can bring to both businesses and their customers. Please note that we cannot guarantee immediate implementation, but we appreciate your input as it helps us in shaping the future of our services. 

We will make sure to provide more updates regarding this thread when we have them. In the meantime, feel free to post any additional feature requests in our Ideate board here. 

Thank you for your understanding and for being a valued Square customer. 

[JLMTW]

It's not a good look for my business nor for Square that I sell eGift cards yet customers cannot use them to book a class/appointment. I've spent HOURS trying to work around this (and have lost processing fees by trying to "test" different scenarios to work around). I've come to the conclusion that t's not worth my time offering these gift cards. If I sell them, a customer may use them for an online purchase from my site but cannot use them for booking. This creates an email chain between the customer and me trying to clarify, ensure we can work around it somehow, and maintain trust in the process. It absorbs my time, the customer's time, and tarnishes the faith that the purchaser put into my business as well as the gift card recipient when trying to book a class.

Makes zero sense and has zero efficiency on my end. Looking at other Square communities (other countries), this has been requested by Square website owners for several years yet it is still not resolved. I plan to remove eGift cards until this is resolved.

[Summer2024]

Hey there, @JLMTW!

I’ve gone ahead and moved your post to an existing thread where sellers are discussing the feature request of being able to use gift cards to book appointments or classes.

Hopefully the ability to use gift cards to book appointments or classes is available soon.