AArrr Apple Gift Card: NEVER AGAIN!

ScottM

ScottM

Taxi to Parking
Joined
Jul 19, 2005
Messages
42,529
Location
Variable, but somewhere on earth
Display Name
Display name:
iBazinga!
Back in December my SO wanted to get me an iPad for my birthday. But I wanted an iPad2 which was not out for a few more months. She used your head and instead got me an $800 Apple gift card.

Come 31 March I am ready to buy the iPad2. I put in an order for it and the cover for a total of $954.12. I asked to use my gift card and to bill my credit card for the $154.12 difference. That request is processed and I am happy. I shred my gift card after I receive my iPad and cover. Then this weekend I am looking over the credit card statement and see a $880.81 to Apple. I cannot figure out what it could be so I call them.

Turns out they only used the gift card to purchase the cover and the credit card for the iPad. I still have a balance on my shredded gift card of $726.69.

I am now on the phone with Apple for the third time trying to get this straightened out. They apologize a lot and acknowledge that their online gift card systems does not work very well if it is a split purchase and items are shipped in multiple shipments.

So they have given me one credit but instead of putting towards the credit card, they put it on the gift card account. SIGH! the same gift card that does not physically exist. Now I have to wait another day or two while they fix that.

The lesson learned is to never, EVER, buy an Apple gift card.
 
ScottM said:
Back in December.........
The lesson learned is to never, EVER, buy an Apple gift card.
Click to expand...

There isn't an app for that?

That is surprising, seems to be a relatively straightforward transaction.

Gary
 
Hey, Unca Scott, I wanna buy one of the new iMacs......
 
alaskaflyer said:
FTFY.

The very concept is (IMO) madness from a consumer perspective.
Click to expand...
I don't actually buy gift cards but I redeem plenty of them. I turn all my hotel points into gift cards because I almost never need to stay in a hotel on my own. I also redeem credit card points for gift cards. I've never gotten an Apple gift card but haven't had any problem with Target or Amazon which are the two that I get most often.
 
Everskyward said:
I don't actually buy gift cards but I redeem plenty of them. I turn all my hotel points into gift cards because I almost never need to stay in a hotel on my own. I also redeem credit card points for gift cards. I've never gotten an Apple gift card but haven't had any problem with Target or Amazon which are the two that I get most often.
Click to expand...
I agree with not buying gift cards.

However, turning points into gift cards means wasting a lot of money. Doing this gives you a very poor value (usually much less than one cent per point) for your points, and even if you don't stay in hotels to redeem points, there's usually much better deals to be had. Depends on the program, of course, but with most decent hotel or CC programs (like SPG, Amex) you can easily get 3-5 cents/point rather than less than 1.
 
sba55 said:
I agree with not buying gift cards.

However, turning points into gift cards means wasting a lot of money. Doing this gives you a very poor value (usually much less than one cent per point) for your points, and even if you don't stay in hotels to redeem points, there's usually much better deals to be had. Depends on the program, of course, but with most decent hotel or CC programs (like SPG, Amex) you can easily get 3-5 cents/point rather than less than 1.
Click to expand...
I don't have that much control over company travel, besides, how is that "wasting money" when I'm not personally paying for the hotel to begin with? I think of it more like a perk. As far as credit cards go, I'm not a big AMEX fan. I think I do OK on the points as I have never gotten less than 1 cent/point and sometimes get 3-5/cents depending on the promotion they are running that month. But again, I don't do things just for the points, they just seem to add up and become somewhat like a bonus.
 
Everskyward said:
I don't have that much control over company travel, besides, how is that "wasting money" when I'm not personally paying for the hotel to begin with? I think of it more like a perk. As far as credit cards go, I'm not a big AMEX fan. I think I do OK on the points as I have never gotten less than 1 cent/point and sometimes get 3-5/cents depending on the promotion they are running that month. But again, I don't do things just for the points, they just seem to add up and become somewhat like a bonus.
Click to expand...

Mari, if getting gift cards is the best use you plan to have for the points, go for it! It's ONLY leaving money on the table when compared to using the points for hotel room or airline seats of the entity that gives the points. Don't plan to use the points for hotels/airlines? Then monetize them any way you can.

Even if you use the points on awards with the airline/hotel/rental car, you may not be getting good value. For the airlines, if you can get a "cheap" seat from, say, DC to LAX at $300, but you use 25,000 points (plus foregoing an additional 10,000 points if you get bonus points), then you've used $350 worth of "value" for the points (at $0.01 per point). Not a good deal. But if you are able to find business class seats on the cheap awards to Europe (at 100,000 points), and the cash price for business class seats is $6,000, then you're way ahead of the game to use points. Of course, that assumes you can actually get the award seats.

Same on hotels. Why should I burn $200 worth of points when I can use my corporate rate of $100 for a room? But sometimes you win: when I went to Rome last fall, the hotel room would have cost (cash) $650 a night (2 nights = $1300), but I could get the room on points (and I could buy the amount of points necessary for a "free" stay from the hotel chain for $600 total). That was an unusually good use of points.

For me, it's better to use the points for travel. For other folks it's much better to turn them into gift cards & get something tangible. At least 'till the IRS figures out how to tax them.
 
wsuffa said:
Mari, if getting gift cards is the best use you plan to have for the points, go for it! It's ONLY leaving money on the table when compared to using the points for hotel room or airline seats of the entity that gives the points. Don't plan to use the points for hotels/airlines? Then monetize them any way you can.
Click to expand...
Exactly. I rarely stay in hotels (or travel other than family duties) for personal reasons and even when I do it seems that it ends up being the wrong chain or something. The only airline points I build up are on Southwest, which I use and Frontier which I cash in since Frontier seems to have so many restrictions on its reward flights.
 
As luck would have it, I actually DID get an Apple gift card as a travel points redemption/reward (no I didn't have a choice how to receive it.) I know that I will probably get something more than the value of the card, so I'll then make it a point to pay cash or write a check for the difference.
 
To give you all an update. As of Friday Apple finally credited by VISA by the right amount so that I now have only paid what I should have in the first place. Today in the mail I got a gift card from Apple for $69 which was the cost of the iPad cover and a note saying that they apologize for the screw and that they wish to comp me for the cover by letting by another thing at that value. I will use the card, but I can darn well guarantee you I won't be using the gift card on the Internet nor letting them have my credit card number to cover any difference!
 
Apple usually does the right thing, eventually... at least in my experience. I'm usually also quite mad for the time period while they make up their minds to do so. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top