Amazon made a change today and stopped allowing the use of an Amazon gift card or Amazon gift card balance to pay for the purchase of third party gift cards or e-gift cards (affiliate link here and below). Ouch.
It was never possible to pay for Amazon gift cards or Visa gift cards with your Amazon gift card balance. But it had been possible to pay for third-party gift cards with your Amazon balance, such as Starbucks, Apple, Chipotle, Best Buy, Albertsons, etc. Now the system is coded not to allow that.
View Comments (227)
Used to love AMZ GCs because if I needed/wanted I could use it on any egift card. I will tell everyone I know not to get me AMZ GCs anymore, good job alienating your CXs AMZ. Workaround mentioned here was patched also, no longer working.
And sadly they raised the reloading Amazon gift card amount to $1.00 (it used to be $0.50). It was helpful when you got one of those prepaid cards from a class action because a lot of them are less than $1.00. Jassy is making horrible changes to Amazon.
I just tried today and the minimum is $5 now!
@guest_1857889,
You have a lot of catching up to do in the below post.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/amazon-reloads-are-now-minimum-1/
Thanks Eric. When I googled, this post is the one that came up, and for some reason I couldn't find that one. Bummer, but oh well. It was nice while it lasted.
There's a way to bypass this, so first you order the gift card with a credit card (make sure there's no money in the credit card) and then after you order go to Access your content, then View order details, and finally when you're in the digital summary click that big orange button that says "retry or edit credit card" and the gift card option will be checked! enjoy :)
Doesn't work anymore.
HELLO
Tried this 5X'S did U use expired C.C. or a debit card (CLOSED ACCT.)?
PC or with UR phone?
Can U help me?
THANKS
@guest_1755173 According to the Reddit thread above, this workaround has been patched by Amazon and no longer works. Sorry. If you absolutely cannot spend your Amazon balance organically and must have the cash, try buying something like a laptop or tablet on Amazon and reselling it elsewhere (EBay?). But you really would be better off just buying shampoo and paper towels etc.for a couple of years until you spend down your Amazon balance.
Thanks
Based on DPs on Reddit, this workaround may be limited to game code-type gift cards sold by Amazon.com Services LLC, and may not work on regular gift cards sold by ACI Gift Cards, LLC. https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrosoftRewards/comments/1701hdg/you_can_no_longer_use_amazon_gift_cards_to_buy/?sort=new
Is it possible in Germany? I have tried it but doesnt work, check Box is still disabled.
No money in the credit card? Do you mean a reload-able debit or gc? I wonder if cashapp debit card is good this.
Wow. I'd probably avoid doing it often to avoid the wrath of the amazon gods, but bolder people might not sweat that :)
On top of no gift card with az gc bal….
>> Also the Mimimum for non prime free shipping
>> went up to $35, what a bunch of crap.
Yes, correct you need to email Jeff at amazon com if you want changes reverted. They made this change so annoying, that even normal supervisors in cs cant override items purchased, basically becoming useless
@guest_1718205 The free shipping change is regional. Some zip codes are still at $25. https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/amazon-raises-free-shipping-minimum-35-depending-zip-code/ZJ34FKN5HJESBGHN5E6ZD6VNKM/
Hey!
We all know that complaining here won't help the situation instead, I encourage every single one of you to head straight to Amazon, get in touch with the support team (via live chat), and lay down your complaints, that's the only way they're gonna remove the restrictions. A support agent at Amazon suggested I should do so.
Have spent hours chatting online and on the phone, but the support agents are useless. I have hundreds of dollars on gift cards and have checked the box saying "use gift card if available," yet they keep charging my Visa card.
An Amazon Chat rep suggested that you encourage others to barrage Amazon Chat with complaints?
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Just keep on calling cs and complaining about it, or wonder why you cant get the card like you did before, why its not going through. KEEP INSISTING, Then this should fix itself
Amazon can go to hell
I used to buy Grub Hub e-gift cards to order food with my Amazon account balance. Guess that's a thing of the past. I also used to be able to buy Whole Foods e-gift cards but that service went away too. Now I can buy physical Whole Foods gift cards that come in the mail. That's a hassle because when I am at Whole Foods, I never know how much I'm going to spend there, and to not be able to load up on e-gift cards while I'm shopping in case I don't know the total amount until at the check out has been a pain. Amazon...what is going on??
A suggestion to Amazon - they should add the ability to use amazon gift cards to buy other gift cards as a Prime membership benefits. They keep raising the price without significant improvement so for some of us, this might be worth it.
Everyone should try to chat with them and suggest or complain. That's probably the only way to get them to change, unless their 3rd party GC sales take a serious hit.
There is a new 40% off with Amex points now. But it might not worth it anymore sadly..:(