AT&T address problem SOLVED!! (sort of…)

Where do you buy these prepaid Visa cards? Can you refill them, or do you need to purchase another each time? Thanks!

I would also like to know some more details on the exact type of pre-paid card you got to work.

In my (brief) web-search it appears there a lot of different types and some seem to work (sometimes) with things like hotel reservations while others don't. I imagine it will be the same with iPad 3G activations.

(Personally, I'm visiting the US next week for a business trip and I was hoping to pick up an iPad 3G and get a wireless data plan for the couple of weeks I'll be there - looking here on the discussions that might prove difficult with my Australian credit card...)

To answer my own question...

Picked up the 3G iPad this afternoon and was able to activate the 3G with my Australian credit card. I had heard (can't remember where (was a while ago) that US merchants can't verify international card addresses so when they detect an international card they ignore the address... so I entered my short-term flat address in both the billing and service address and it activated straight away.

Can someone else please verify that they can use an non-US credit card to purchase iPad 3G data plan from AT&T?

I just came back from an overnight trip to U.S.

I bought a microSIM card from an AT&T retail store: $15 plus tax.

I inserted the card into my bought-in-Canada iPad and went to Settings/Cellular Data/View Account, this brought up the AT&T data plan signup dialog box as expected - see: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4157

But I can verify that using a Canadian credit card (CIBC Visa) did NOT work to purchase an AT&T data plan. Specifically I tried:

a) using billing address = my home Cdn billing address for my Visa card, and a valid US address for the service address (my hotel address)

-> in this case, the dialog box returned with an error saying my billing address was not a valid address. It did not allow me to enter a non-valid US all-numeric zip code like a Canadian postal code. Leaving the zip code field blank with the rest of my correct Cdn address also did not work.

b) using a valid US address (hotel address) for both the billing address and service address.

-> in this case, it didn't complain about the address, but simply failed to accept my registration
I'm guessing it failed because my billing address did not match my credit card info.

I did also purchase a prepaid US Visa gift card, but because I was only in US for a day, I did not yet try signing up for the AT&T data plan using that card (which I'm guessing will work, based on other reports)

I will be going to US again in a few weeks, and I will try the prepaid Visa gift card then.

p.s. I bought the Visa gift card at Target - it seemed like a better deal than some of the other cards I researched. It has a small one-time fee upon purchase (+$4 fee for a $25 card, +$5 for $50, and +$6 for $100 card). Unlike some other cards, the Target card is not reloadable, but does not require online activation/registration, the balance never expires, and does not incur any addition fee if unused after a year.

followup to my previous post:

just came back from 2nd trip to US

this time I used a prepaid Visa gift card (from Target) - I was able to activate an AT&T data plan with that, using my hotel address as the billing & service address.

so to recap:
- Canadian Visa card (CIBC) did not work
- Visa gift card does work
- elsewhere I've seen others report that a Canadian AmEx card does work

side note: 250MB of data is not a lot of data. next time I'll get the bigger plan.