Business owners should know when to give consideration and/or exceptions to their customers.

This man shares that he bought a coffee business from its previous owner.

Along with the change of management, he decided to stop accepting old loyalty cards. Then, months later, a customer walked in with an old loyalty card.

Read the story below for all the details.

AITA for refusing to honour a customer’s full loyalty card from the previous owner?

I bought a café business 10 months ago.

When I first took over, I said I’d honour vouchers and loyalty cards from the previous management.

But I’ll do this for a limited time only.

This man announced that they would no longer accept old loyalty cards.

By August 2024, nearly all the old vouchers had been redeemed.

So I put up a post on Facebook and signs in the window and by the till letting customers know that we’d stop accepting the old loyalty cards at the end of September.

I also offered to transfer any stamps from the old cards onto our new loyalty cards.

A woman came in with a fully stamped loyalty card.

Yesterday, a woman came in and ordered a coffee.

She then handed me a fully stamped loyalty card from the previous management.

The stamps were the old ones.

I had deliberately changed the stamp design when I took over knowing the policy would change after six months.

He politely declined the card and explained why he couldn’t accept it.

I politely explained that we’d stopped accepting those cards months ago.

She got visibly annoyed, and said I should honour it because she’s a “loyal customer.”

I was confused because I’ve never seen her before—and I know all my regulars.

I explained our policy and apologised.

I even offered her a new loyalty card with an extra stamp as a goodwill gesture.

The customer left annoyed.

She doubled down, saying, “It’s just one coffee.” And insisted I make an exception.

I told her that wouldn’t be fair to other customers who followed the rules.

She left annoyed, and now I’m wondering if I was too rigid.

AITA?

It doesn’t sound like she’s very loyal if she didn’t know about the change and hadn’t redeemed the card in all that time.

Let’s read the reactions of other people about this story on Reddit.

This user shares a sensible assumption.

While this person offers some good advice.

Here’s another valid point from this user.

It’s one coffee, says this person.

Finally, here’s a short but straightforward remark.

It seems like it’s not a good move over a cup of coffee.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.