Just playing devils advocate here, but two months is at least 8 weekends when the certificate could have been redeemed. Did the holder of the certificate say, "How about next weekend then?", or "how about I hang around and see if the weather improves?". That's the kind of thing a flying school would see as a prospective student. Not someone that rings up a few weeks later on the off chance that they might get to go flying.
Considering how many flying schools have closed down in the past few years, the ones that are left are maybe not that desperate for students, I don't know. If you pay for a flight and don't use it, well that's a bonus for the flying school.
That school must really dislike the prospect of tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue.
Do you really believe a flying school is going to make thousands from someone getting their PPL there? If that was the case, there'd be a lot more flying schools around.
Having bought gift vouchers for people myself, I suspect aviation is no different to any other industry in as far as, most people don't redeem the vouchers. It's easy money for the companies selling the vouchers. And every voucher has its terms and conditions on it. And everyone reads them don't they
