There are a few reasons for this. When you purchase a gift on our site, we do not require you to make a reservation. That certificate is good for quite a while. Because general inflation and the cost of aircraft fuel can spike rapidly, the cost of delivering your skydive can skyrocket. $1 increase in our fuel cost can mean an exponentially higher cost in delivery. Therefore, we build in a margin to ensure we can keep up and not have to charge fuel surcharges.
In addition, we incur higher processing fees for online transactions on gifts than on reservations. Also, when customers reserve a date they have the option to pay the balance of their skydive in cash upon arrival, reducing fees.
Lastly, historically we have experienced more fraud for gift certificate sales. Fraudulent transactions cost the company, not just because we lose the revenue, but because we must pay extremely high fees to the processor when this occurs. The addition price helps offset the risk.