Legal Question in Business Law in California

Coupons can expire as far as I know. It is gift certificates and cash-value gift cards that cannot.

The law is set forth in the Civil Code at sections 1749.45, 1749.5, 1749.6 and 1749.51 (listed in that sequence in West's Annotated Codes, as illogical as that may be), and if you will be giving professional advice to a client you may want to look at the text of all sections because they are laced with definitions and exceptions. However, the general drift of the law is to protect consumers who have paid money or given other valuable consideration for a gift card or gift certificate from abrupt loss of value by expiration, change of business ownership, etc. This law would not apply to coupons, etc. given free.