Originally Posted by kane

A few years ago my brother won a gift card to this resort at his kid's school fundraising auction. The card is for two nights stay and $60 they can use in the resort restaurant, spa, gift shop etc.

He and his wife go and they decide to use part of it on lunch. The bill comes and it is $33. My brother gives the waiter the gift card and is expecting either change, or a gift card with the balance in return and he planned to tip with cash. The waiter comes back and leaves the receipt with them, but not money and no other card. My brother looks at the receipt and sees that the guy took the balance of the gift card ($27) as a tip. He gets up, finds the manager, and asks why this was (thinking maybe the card can only be used once or some strange limitation like that). The manager looks at the receipt, is confused and calls the waiter over. The waiter then explains that since it was a gift card he didn't think the person expected change and intended for him to have the balance as his tip. The manager was not very happy to hear him say that.

The manager made it good by giving them lunch for free and giving them the full gift card back. I wonder how many times that waiter had done that in the past and gotten away with it.