Sure -- I find knowingly using a false date-of-transaction to be fraud. We're talking about almost a year later. Don't you think they have responsibility for putting through charges in a timely manner? Or is it really okay to screw up big time, and decide "Well, we'll just put these rock-hard-stale-charges through as today's date, and hope for the best"?

As for the other example of the restaurant where I bought the gift cert, I was quite willing to pay for it with a slightly later transaction date, rather than cancelling the balance-of-cert, as long as Rewards Network gave me credit for the date-of-visit. The $15 or so that this place ended up "eating" out of the gift cert in this case was due to the fact that they screwed up; I signed the credit card slip in good faith on the actual date-of-purchase.