Deadline to use Hawaii restaurant holiday cards extended to Sunday
The deadline for the Hawaii Restaurant holiday card has been extended to Sunday due to a misunderstanding over time zones.
The new deadline is now 11:59 p.m. this Sunday, the state and Hawaii Restaurant Association confirmed.
The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, in partnership with HRA and others, made the green debit cards available for purchase to companies back in mid-November as a way to further support Hawaii’s restaurant industry.
Companies could buy the preloaded cards in denominations of $5 to $1,000 to give to their employees or clients over the holidays.
The original deadline to use the cards was at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, the last day of March. At the time, there were still some 20,000 active cards out there, with $333,000 total remaining on them, according to the HRA, which was reminding recipients to use them before they expired.
However, some customers trying to use the cards Wednesday afternoon were told they had already expired.
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DBEDT said the card’s vendor, Fiserv, had set the expiration date of the cards according to universal time, which is 10 hours ahead of Hawaii time. After reaching out to Fiserv, the vendor reprogrammed the cards and set the new deadline to 11:59 p.m. Sunday, Hawaii time.
