The problem there would be that customers who are sent gift certificates would have had to set up an account and there are quite a few stores not using the client login.
Also very true and in this case I just assumed that would be the case. So rephrase them. Simple to do if criteria is met.
But another page could easily be created to call the giftcode and date which then displays the balance. Again not complicated and non dependent of an account needing to be created