I'm just remembering that I meant to ask about this. Have they changed this since last year? This was one of the few things in WWoHP that was a bust for us. We thought by exchanging for wizard money they would give us knuts and galleons but it was a boring gift certificate. If they had created knuts and galleons we would have kept some for souvenirs. Universals loss, I guess but you'd think they are missing out on a revenue stream there. I think a lot of people would exchange money and keep some if it was in line with the books.
We used the gift certs at stores and no one treated the kids any differently when they used them. What did the people at Hogs Head do?
The goblin in the exchange was creepy cool and singled me out for questioning so it wasn't a complete waste of time but it was overall disappointing.