At one time, if you wanted a Big Mac and fries, you needed to make sure you had a few bucks on you. But like many fast food restaurants, McDonald’s has accepted credit cards for years, whether you make purchases at the drive-thru or in the restaurant. You can even order using the McDonald’s app, paying with your card through your mobile wallet. If you have a Visa gift card, it works like any other Visa card. You simply hand it to the cashier, swipe it or add it to the app and enjoy your meal. Show
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Activate Your CardTake a look at the card. Have you activated it yet? Many Visa gift cards are activated at purchase, so it should be ready to use. But in some cases, you’ll need to activate the card before using it, so check for a sticker with activation instructions. You’ll also need to sign the back since, just like any other Visa card, a savvy cashier will not accept the card for payment without that signature. Checking Your BalanceBefore leaving home for the restaurant, you may want to check the balance on your gift card. If it’s brand new, you probably can skip this step, since it takes a lot of Egg McMuffins to spend a $10, $25 or $50 gift card. If you don’t know the balance, though, there should be information on the back of the card instructing you how to check it. Usually, this means either visiting a website or calling a phone number. Pay and EnjoyYour experience at the register will be seamless unless the balance on the card is less than the amount of your purchase. Say you take your friend or family to lunch at your local Golden Arches, and your meals come to $12, while your gift card balance is $10. If you don’t tell the cashier ahead of time, the system will see it as insufficient funds and reject the transaction. For this reason, you should know your balance and tell the cashier once you know the total. The cashier will be able to charge $10 to your gift card and $2 to your other payment method. Discard the CardOnce you’ve depleted the balance on your card, you should retain the card as long as there are items you might need to return. You won’t return your McDonald’s meal weeks later, of course, but you may have purchased other items on it. If you’re confident you won’t need to return anything, cut up the card and toss it. References
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Writer Bio Stephanie Faris has written about finance for entrepreneurs and marketing firms since 2013. She spent nearly a year as a ghostwriter for a credit card processing service and has ghostwritten about finance for numerous marketing firms and entrepreneurs. Her work has appeared on The Motley Fool, MoneyGeek, Ecommerce Insiders, GoBankingRates, and ThriveBy30. On the outside, giving someone a chain restaurant gift card sounds like a pretty good gift idea. A free $50 meal at Red Lobster? Awesome! But if you've ever tried to use a gift card at a restaurant, you probably already know that the process can be a total hassle, and giving someone a gift card for a chain restaurant is just setting them up for disaster. The problem with using gift cards at restaurants comes down to the way credit card machines are programmed to handle gratuity. Let's say there's $50 on the card. When you try to pay with a card at a restaurant (gift card or otherwise), a hold of 120 percent of the cost of the meal is usually added to the card automatically, to accommodate a later tip addition of up to 20 percent. After you pay and leave, your server goes back to the machine and updates the charge to incorporate the full cost of your meal, including tip. This method assures the restaurant that there's enough money in your account (or on your credit card) to pay for the meal as well as the tip. While this system works just fine for credit cards, it's a real headache with gift cards. Let's say you have a $50 gift card, and budget out your meal so it costs $47. You hand the card to your server, planning on leaving a cash tip, but instead of deducting $47 from the card, it actually tries to deduct closer to $60, and your card is declined. You only have a couple options when this happens: You can either just pay for the meal out of pocket, or your server can run the card over and over again, each time charging slightly less, until it's no longer declined and you can make up the difference in cash. But because restaurants are charged every time they run their credit card terminal, they really don't want to be doing this for you. The moral of the story? If you want to pay for a meal with a gift card make sure the amount you're charging is nowhere near the total value of the card, and if you want to give someone a chain restaurant gift card as a present, just write them a check instead. Why can't I use a Visa gift card at a restaurant?1) Are you Using the Visa Gift Card at a restaurant or salon? There is a possibility the transaction may be declined. Older payment processing terminals may automatically run an authorization transaction of 20% more than your total bill to ensure the gift card has enough funds to cover a gratuity.
Can you use a Visa gift card at fast food restaurants?Yes. You can pay nearly any bill that can be paid with a debit or credit card by using a Visa Gift Card.
Can you use vanilla Visa gift cards at restaurants?You can use your Vanilla Gift Card virtually anywhere Vanilla Cards are accepted within the United States and District of Columbia, except the Gift Card may not be used for recurring billing or at ATMs.
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Can i use visa gift card at restaurant
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