topic Re: Gift Card Promotion in Back Office & Team

Gift Card Promotion

chrisMKE — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 20:48:53 GMT

Every year we would do a promotion with our gift cards around the holidays. Buy $50 get $10 bonus that had to be used between January 1 and March 31st. We are currently using the Toast Gift Card program.

We have an easy program for our physical cards, but I am not sure what the solution is for the guests that buy e-gift cards.

Re: Gift Card Promotion

rcmck — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 20:53:57 GMT

You can't give a bonus e-gift card but you can offer a discount of $10 off a purchase of a $50 gift card.

https://central.toasttab.com/s/article/Discounting-E-Gift-Card-Sales

Re: Gift Card Promotion

chrisMKE — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 22:30:21 GMT

Thanks for the help!

Re: Gift Card Promotion

BeverlyRace — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 22:03:33 GMT

We offered a similar "Buy $100 Gift Card, Get $25 Gift Card for Yourself" promotions for years with our prior point-of-sale (MICROS). I've asked for this online bonus e-card feature for two years now, to no avail.

This is the answer that I got today from Customer Care: Will be submitting a feature request to our engineers for this. A feature request informs our engineers that there is a desire for something to be added to the system. It is not a guarantee that a feature will be added, but it does create a paper trail. If a large percentage of our customers request the same thing, it increases the likelihood that it could be added in a future update.

So please share with your restaurant contacts to create Customer Care Cases showing the desire for this feature. It likely won't be in time for this holiday season, but hopefully we can get it up and running for 2024's holiday season.

Re: Gift Card Promotion

rcmck — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 21:50:33 GMT

We have been doing a similar offer every year with Toast, I'm not sure what feature you need to be able to do this outside of having the gift card module? Can you explain what is missing that you require?

Re: Gift Card Promotion

BeverlyRace — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 21:57:39 GMT

Toast has told me for 14 months that the only option is to discount the card, so that the buyer can send a physical and/or online $125 gift card to the recipient for $100 by using instructions from this link: https://central.toasttab.com/s/article/Discounting-E-Gift-Card-Sales

But we aren't looking to offer the discount this way. We offer two distinct gift cards - $100 to the recipient and separate $25 to buyer. That encourages one purchase to bring in two tables.

If you know how to do this, we'd be so ecstatic to learn what you're doing!

Re: Gift Card Promotion

rcmck — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 22:01:04 GMT

Ok, yes that is the only way to offer it online, we just offer the discount for online purchase but for physical cards the customer gets an additional card at no charge. Wasn't sure if your issue was the online or in person purchase.

Re: Gift Card Promotion

chrisMKE — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 22:02:09 GMT

Hello,

Yes we are having the same issue. We want to offer the guest $20 per $100 and have them have to use the $20 between January and March. This drives traffic to our restaurants during a slower period. We have to do a work around which is to only offer that with physical gift cards that they purchase from our locations or we mail out with a paper certificate that is numbered for tracking purposes and an expiration number. We will set that discount code up in Toast. Not the best idea, but the only way we can do at this point.

Re: Gift Card Promotion

BeverlyRace — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 22:02:46 GMT

I have talked with several local restauranteurs that use Toast that want this feature, and based on their answer, I was hoping that posting in the Toast Community might result in Toast receiving enough requests that they actually act on this feature request. Time will tell!

Re: Gift Card Promotion

chrisMKE — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 22:08:14 GMT

That's the best work around, however, we would love to be able to do both. I would also like them to add an expiration on the gift cards. That would be helpful.

Re: Gift Card Promotion

BeverlyRace — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 22:08:23 GMT

That's similar to our work-around solution, except that we run a group of the $25 Promo Gift Cards and then each day, pull up the e-version of that gift card and send an email to the buyer thanking them for their online purchase and including that link for their $25 e-gift card.

Easier for our operations staff than a mix of gift card and paper certificates, but the downside is no expiration dates on the bonus e-gift cards.

AppSuite's program was somewhat clunky with its MICROS integration, but now we'd be happy if Toast would integrate with them and get this feature working.

Re: Gift Card Promotion

BeverlyRace — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 22:09:54 GMT

That would be VERY helpful! Spread the word, maybe we'll succeed. 🤞

Re: Gift Card Promotion

rcmck — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 22:23:42 GMT

Expiration might be tricky with the differing's laws from state to state, but fingers crossed that some updates with e-gift cards might be part of whatever is happening on Nov 1st.

Re: Gift Card Promotion

bottletheory — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 21:18:11 GMT

Hi - how do you know who purchased the gift card if it was purchased online?

Re: Gift Card Promotion

BeverlyRace — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 22:10:17 GMT

There's probably an easier way that I haven't learned yet, but these are my steps:

* Search for Gift Card Transactions on Toast Home Page

* Enter Date Range if needed

* Locate specific gift card transaction (may need to Search Payments by Credit Card Number to get this info) and click on that line item

* ORDER DETAILS will pop up

* Scroll down to grayish area under MENU ITEM

* Click on that line and CARD DETAILS will pop up, including Purchaser Email data, link to view online Gift Card, etc

Hope this helps!

Re: Gift Card Promotion

bottletheory — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 22:19:53 GMT

Amazing I've been spinning in circles for an hour trying to figure this out.

THANKS!

Re: Gift Card Promotion

rcmck — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 01:48:18 GMT

With the new egift card site (in the test kitchen) egift cards now have their own dining option which you can just select from the sales summary and it brings up the transactions for all egift cards in that period, then you just need to select one to view order details.