Can REI refund me for a gift card if the item I wanted to purchase is no longer available?

[paulgiller]

In Dec 2019, I purchased a $75.00 gift card for  my grandson's Christmas gift. It was to go  toward his purchase of your CANNONDALE Catalyst 3 2018 Acid Red SM bike. Shortly after the first of the year, he went to the store to make his purchase. The bike was no longer in the store. I contacted your customer service and was told the bike would be available after the first of February. He checked  again and was told that REI replaced that version with another - which was out of  his price range. Since you no longer make a model at this price, I respectufully request a  refund  for the $75 card. Please let me hear from you soon. Thank you. 03/26/20

[REI-JenK]

@paulgiller thank you for reaching out and we are sorry to hear that we no longer carry the bike your grandson wants. We have 2 options to suggest:

• It may still be possible for us to order the Cannondale bike your grandson wants, through our special order process. This is process in which we contact a vendor directly and order an item that the co-op does not carry; the only caveat at this time is that our special orders are placed by our local store teams so your grandson would need to wait until after our stores reopen to proceed.
• If waiting for a special order is not of interest, we recommend connecting with our Customer Support team at 1-800-426-4840 to discuss the options for your gift card; here in the community we do not have the ability to process refunds.

We hope one of these 2 options helps. We have also removed your contact information from your post to help protect your privacy.