You cannot "see" pixie dust. It often happens behind the scenes. You can be pixie dusted without knowing it. It is Disney's policy NOT to ever issue refunds for tickets for any reason. Several ticketing CM's have confirmed it here. I firmly believe that the manager who approved this one chose to just approve it rather than deal with the fallout form not doing so after your friend said that she was told on the phone it was possible. I think it was simply a case of raising enough of a stink to get what you want. I DO NOT buy the idea that Disney is changing it's policies. It doesn't make economic sense for them to do so. Forcing you to buy that 2 day pass ensures that you will be back. They are not going to give that up. There is no reason that this incident could not have been documented witohout your knowledge. The CM who was called by the POP CM would have likely done just that. You can rest assured that there is a record of this attached to your name in the Disney system and it will come up for the CM to see the nect time you have an issue.
You are funny. Why? Because you pretty much ignored all the things I posted. You ignored that there was no manager, just the CMs (2 different ones doing the same thing at 2 different windows). You ignored that we didn't make a stink, not at all. And maybe I didn't mention that it was all okay'd before we gave them our passes or reservation info, so they weren't checking our names to see how much of a stink we made (which was none). So let me re-hash for you...
Went to Pop counter. Our friend told us that she was getting the gift card. I told her it was not possible based on everything I've heard here. Got to the counter and she asked. CM got on phone, asked about it and then told her that we had to do it at the park guest services. Then we checked into our rooms.
Went to MK, Guest Services. My family went to one window, our friend went to the other. We told the CM that we had to purchase 2 day passes to get the free dining and wanted to return them for a gift card. This was before she scanned cards or new anything.
Simultaneously our friend at the other window, which was not directly next to ours, was doing the same thing. The CM stated, "Oh, okay you had to buy them for the dining. I will need your KTTW card and your park passes". We gave her everything. Then she started scanning them all in and handed us our gift card.
And for the record you can see pixie dust. If you can't you are not looking very hard. If this was out of the ordinary I am quite sure they would make us aware that it wasn't normal. I'm really not sure what example of pixie dust would be unrecognizable. I've gotten fast passes for my entire party of 7 in the past, as well as VIP seating for the parade. I knew it was pixie dust. If I ever get upgraded I'll know it was pixie dust.
And the last thing I will say is that a CM on the phone prior to our trip told our friend she could do this. That was why she brought it up. And come to think of it, I never really asked the question on the phone. I only asked if I absolutely had to buy the 2 day passes since I had passes already. It never occurred to me to ask about getting a gift card back for the passes later.
to OP.
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Nobody's even posted in this thread in almost three weeks, except once to ask for an update 
