Q: Use a giftcard on family sharing

melsporrer wrote:

 

I'm on family sharing, but I have a $30 giftcard that I want to use. How do I use the gift card rather than the card on our family sharing plan?

Mel, To use that credit balance, you need to... buy something!

With Family Sharing, iTunes will charge to the credit balance of the purchaser before hitting the Family Organizer's credit card.

Some Family Organizers are surprised to find that their kids' purchases are charged to the FO's credit card instead of the FO's credit balance.  That is how it works.  To avoid that redeem the gift card to the kids' accounts instead of your own, so that the kid will have a credit balance that can be applied to their own purchases.

melsporrer wrote:

 

Hi Ed –

 

I have the giftcard balance on my account (my email address), but our family organizer is under a different apple ID account. Therefore, when I hit "buy" it's making our family organizer approve and says it will be charged to his AMEX card. This is not waht I want to do. I have the giftcard on my account and I want to buy from my giftcard balance – not a credit card. How does that work?

Mel,

If you have sufficient store credit, your purchases should go to that before the FO's credit card.  Here is the info from the document Family purchases and payments:

"After you set up your family, any time a family member initiates a new purchase it will be billed directly to your account unless that family member has gift or store credit. First, their store credit will be used to pay the partial or total bill. The remainder will bill to the family organizer's card."

It is possible that the message to the FO does not correctly account for this, and just has a default saying it will go to the credit card.  I suggest you give it a try on a 99 cent purchase.  I expect it will apply as stated in the Apple document, but if not, contact iTunes Customer Service.