AI Guides › Workbench
By Nigel Guy · 8 min read
The usual way to do this is to type "find all my unused vouchers" into ChatGPT, get back a confident list of twenty items, and take it as a balance sheet. It isn't one. The list mixes expired codes with live ones and marketing emails with real credits, and some entries were already spent years ago. It feels like you've found money. All you've actually found is a list of emails.
The rule: run it as two separate passes. Pass one only finds and lists what your inbox says you were given. Pass two checks each item at the source. Nothing counts as money until a company's own site or account shows a balance.
Mostly yes, with one caveat you need to check before you start.
Most credits, refunds and vouchers come with an email: a cancellation notice, a "here's your credit" message or a gift card delivery. Gmail keeps those for years. Once you've connected the Gmail app, ChatGPT can search your mailbox and read the messages it finds. The cloud browser can then open a company's website, pause while you sign in through a secure form, and read what your account page shows. OpenAI says the credentials you type there go straight to the remote browser and the model can't see them.
| Tool | What it does | Cost at time of writing | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail's own search | Finds emails with operators like subject:, older_than: and category:purchases |
Free | Doing pass one yourself, or checking ChatGPT's list | You read every result yourself |
| Gmail app in ChatGPT | Searches and reads your mailbox inside a chat | Depends on plan. I couldn't confirm UK £ prices from OpenAI's pricing page, so check at checkout | Pass one: building the list | Availability varies by region and plan. It only sees mail that reached that account |
| ChatGPT Work with the cloud browser | Visits sites, pauses for you to sign in, reads account pages | Paid plans only, excluding Free and Go | Pass two: checking balances | Some sites block automated browsers. You may have to take over or check by hand |
| A spreadsheet (the Credit Ledger) | Keeps one row per item, with evidence | Free | Deciding what to spend first | Only as good as what you paste in |
Connect Gmail first. Go to Settings > Plugins, select Gmail, install it if prompted, and approve the permissions on Google's screen. Then start a new chat, type @ and choose Gmail, and paste the prompt below.
Fill in: your Gmail address, how far back to search, and any companies you already suspect.
You are helping me audit my own Gmail account, [GMAIL_ADDRESS], for money I may be owed but never used.
Goal: a list of every email that gave me a travel credit, refund-as-credit, e-gift card, store credit or voucher, going back [TIME_PERIOD, e.g. 6 years].
Companies I already suspect: [COMPANY_LIST or "none"].
Steps:
1. Search my mail with several narrow queries rather than one broad one. Cover words like "credit", "voucher", "gift card", "e-gift", "refund", "future travel", "balance" and "promo code", and include receipts and cancellation emails.
2. Open each likely match and read it. Do not judge from the subject line.
3. Leave out pure marketing: discount offers sent to everyone, newsletters and loyalty points with no cash value.
4. If the same credit appears in several emails, merge them into one row and keep the most recent email.
Output a table with these columns: Company | Type | Amount and currency as stated | Code or reference (last 4 characters only) | Expiry date as stated, or "not stated" | Date of email | Subject line | Confidence (high/medium/low) and why.
Rules:
- Quote amounts and dates only as they appear in the email. Never estimate or fill gaps.
- If an email suggests the credit was later used or reversed, say so.
- Do not send, delete, label or archive anything.
- If you can't tell whether something is a real credit, list it as low confidence. Do not guess.
- If you can't access Gmail, or the search returns nothing, tell me rather than producing a list.
Before answering, check every row against its source email, and tell me which search queries you ran so I can repeat them.
Then check the result in Gmail yourself. Search "gift card" older_than:1y or subject:voucher and compare. If you use inbox categories, category:purchases and category:reservations are worth a look too. Anything ChatGPT missed goes into the ledger by hand.
Switch to Work and start a new task. Do one company per task, or at most a handful. A single task covering twenty sites will stall on the first sign-in page.
Fill in: the rows from pass one for the companies you want checked.
You are checking whether credits I was issued are still usable. The source of truth is each company's own website or my account on it. My emails are not.
Items to check:
[PASTE_ROWS_FROM_PASS_ONE: company, type, amount, code reference, expiry]
For each item:
1. Go to the company's official website. Type the address from the company name. Do not follow links from my emails.
2. Find where credits, vouchers or gift card balances are shown: the account page, a "check balance" tool or the bookings section.
3. If sign-in is needed, pause and ask me to use the secure sign-in form. Never ask for a password in chat.
4. Record what the site shows: remaining balance, expiry date, and any terms on how it can be used.
Output a table with these columns: Company | Status (live / expired / used / could not check) | Balance shown | Expiry shown | Where on the site you saw it | Notes.
Rules:
- Do not redeem, book, buy, transfer or request anything. This is a read-only check. If any step would commit me to something, stop and ask.
- If a site blocks you or the page is unclear, mark it "could not check" and give me the URL to try myself.
- Never infer a balance from my email. Only report what the site displays.
Before answering, confirm that every "live" row has a balance you actually saw on the page.
Merge both passes into one sheet. Use these columns: Company, Amount per email, Balance per site, Expiry, Status, How to redeem, Spend by. Sort by expiry. The only rows that count are those where Balance per site has a figure. Everything else is a lead, not money.
A hypothetical example. Say pass one finds six items: an airline credit from a cancelled 2023 flight, two retailer e-gift cards, a hotel credit, a rail refund and a 15%-off code. You drop the discount code, because it's marketing and has no balance. Pass two shows one e-gift card still live, the hotel credit expired, and the rail refund already paid back to your card. The airline site blocks the cloud browser, so you check it yourself. Two leads become real money, and you know which one to spend first.
gmail.modify, which goes beyond read-only. Check your app permissions, disconnect Gmail under Settings > Plugins when you've finished, and remember that disconnecting doesn't delete chats or saved memories.