> How often do gift cards lose their balance after 12 months?

Gift cards sometimes used to, but, in the US at least, the federal government and various states passed rules limiting expiration.

Maybe that'll be the ultimate outcome here.

Yeah, in Australia I believe we have a 3 year minimum on gift cards. Surely in need of some regulation in the software space many saas agreements are extremely punitive towards the consumer and this seems to fit that description too.