Can't use Apple Account Balance to complete purchase

So after further research this has been an issue every time you cancel or return an item bought with ID balance . (Which was the common denomonatir in our cases) You have to call back in and use these specific words “Please unblock my Purchasing Block on my Apple ID balance that was blocked when i cancelled Order mxxxxx”. If you use these words they won’t transfer you but instead create a case to level 2 which should get back in a day…. That’s the stage I’m in right now. If that doesn’t work , I’m emailing Tim Cook, if that doesn’t work BBB, it’s my hard earned real money, not just some store points

I, too, have been in Apple order/payment block ****. Long story short, I had three separate experiences:

1. My Apple Account balance of over $1000 could not be used to make any transaction. This was resolved after 3.5 hours on the phone where Post Sales Support sent in a request to unblock the balance. Once this was completed (24 hours later), I was able to add the funds to my Apple Wallet (which was previously blocked). I was also able to use these funds to make Apple App Store Purchases.
2. I went to make a purchase using my Apple ID on Apple.com for a new Apple product. I tried to complete the purchase using my account balance and received a "Payment Failed" notification. I tried doing a partial payment with my credit card and with the Account Balance and received a "Payment Failed" notification. I spoke with Post Sales Support and they said my Apple Store Account was blocked. They put in a request via email and I was told I would receive an update within 24 hours. Received an email the next morning saying my account was unblocked and ready to use.
3. Attempted to make purchase following steps from #2 above after receiving the email of the unblocked account status. Received same errors. Spoke with Post Sales Support and explained my frustration (now over 6 hours of time wasted!). The rep was super knowledgable and suggested we unredeem one of the gift cards. After doing so, I still had enough Apple Account Balance to cover the purchase. I successfully completed my order in 30 seconds online. He said that he has seen this before and by removing a gift card from the balance it seems to initiate a reset on the freeze. I now have the unredeemed gift card and will use it to make a purchase using a "Pay with Gift Card" selection at checkout next time when I need it.

Hope the above helps you! Bottom line, talk to post sales support, ask them to unblock your funds if you cannot add the Balance to your Apple Wallet or ask them to unblock your account if you can't checkout at Apple.com, but you CAN add your Balance to your Apple Wallet and if that continues to fail thereafter, ask them to remove a gift card from your account. Good luck!!

I also had this problem.

When using my Apple Account balance to cover an entire product order on apple.com. I would get this error:

“Items in your order are not eligible for this payment method. Please select another form of payment.”

This is how I solved it (today - Sept 26):

1/

Place the order using your credit card as the payment method.

You will now have an order number.

2/

Call Apple’s sales support (877-377-6362) - give them your order number and tell them you would like to update your payment method. Explain that you completed the order with your credit card, but would like to use your Apple Account balance instead. They will be able to do this seamlessly. Problem solved.

(There is no need to explain the error — yesterday, I tried going that route first, and I ended up being transferred over 5 times over the course of 2 hours till they transferred me to a department that was closed.)

I suspect that this issue is a bug entangled with the rollout of the Apple Account Card feature in iOS 15.5 (https://www.macobserver.com/tips/quick-tip/how-to-add-your-apple-account-card-to-wallet/ )

So - theoretically you could use your Apple Account balance by adding the Apple Account card in Apple Wallet and then paying for the order with Apple Pay (selecting the Apple Account Card). This did not work for me b/c I use a different Apple ID for iCloud (and Wallet) then I use for making purchases - if you try to add the Apple Account card with that setup - you get this error:

“Cannot Add Balance to Wallet

You have two different accounts for the App Store and iCloud. You can still use your account balance for App Store and media purchases.”

This error message seems to imply that some folks at Apple meant for us to use this Apple Account Card as the new way to buy products using our Apple Account balance... but not everyone at Apple was on the same page at the same time...

I hope this helps!

***Here is a fix***

I ran into the same problem and called Apple support and they fixed it for me within a couple of hours. This problem happens when you try to use a partial or full Apple account balance to make an online purchase on Apple store, regardless what credit card you use, you’ll always get that payment failed message. Even if you have enough Apple account balance to cover the full purchase, you’ll still end up getting the same error and Apple website just wouldn’t let your order to go through.

So I called Apple support and was told they received many calls on the same issue, I was also informed it’s an Apple issue and nothing wrong with my account, the tech support guy manually reset my account and told me to wait 24 hours to receive a message then try placing the order again. I got the email from Apple within 2 hours informing my account problem was fixed, I went online and placed the order again and it worked!

So for those of you who are getting the same problem, don’t waste your time looking for help online, it’s an Apple internal problem, just call Apple support and they will fix it for you very quickly!

Called Apple Care and Asked me for the Temporary Pin from appleid.apple.com. I gave the temp PIN. She said the account is verified but it will take 24 hours to reflect. Exactly after 24 hours, it worked.

Pay $250.00 with:Account Balance

Pay $290.17 with:APPLE CARD

Thanks to this thread I finally learned how to deal with this problem (was blocked from purchasing a Studio Display using gift card credit that I had added to my account).

I called 1-800-692-7753 and the person that I spoke to said this was a common issue due a system upgrade from a month ago that disconnected "everyone's" store credit from their ability to purchase. She submitted the ticket to have mine resolved and told me it could take anywhere from an hour to 24 hours to receive the email confirmation. I got the email about 28 hours after the call and my purchase finally worked.

However the email said that I only had 24 hours from the time it was sent to make purchases. That's not a good sign that this issue was actually fixed.

Wish I found this out earlier. Same issue as of today (3 months after this thread was opened).

As mentioned up thread, don't even bother with support. Just place the order with credit card, call Apple and asked for order help for an "order I already placed" and asked to change payment method by applying Apple account balance and refund credit card.

Rep pulled the order up, had me confirm order details and hit confirm on an Apple device associated with my Apple ID. Then he applied Apple account balance and refunded credit card amount.

Total call took 5 minutes.

If you want to be sure this is to be foolproof and willing to go to Apple store, just do store pickup so that you can cancel the order or not pickup if it turns out your account is actually blocked.

Hey, I am facing the same issue here. However, I believe I have found out why the whole apple customer service are clueless on "Apple Account Balance disable" or "Unable to use Apple Account Balance". On Apple support's side, the system shows there is a purchasing block on the Apple Account Balance while on our (customer) side, we are unable to use our Apple Account Balance.

Here is the solution:

1. Call: 1-800-MY-APPLE, ask to be transferred to post sales team/support, and
2. ask them to check if you have a purchasing block on you Apple Account Balance (I assume the answer is YES for all of us in the discussion), and
3. ask them to file a unblock request to the "back office support team" to lift the purchasing block for you, and
4. you should hear back from APPLE in 24 hours.

I am in the process of waiting for response, Good Luck!

Little Quick Update:

I was transferred to 5 different CS Resp from different departments and had to repeat myself until this was eventually solved.

Suggested Solution:

If you have an Apple ID Balance that covers your entire purchase, contact Apple Support over the phone and ask to speak with an RCC Sales Specialist, then ask them to place the order on your behalf.

For security reasons, you have to verify your Identity, in order to allow the specialist to place the order for you with the intended Apple ID. To do so, you will receive a Pop-Up notification on one of the devices attached to your Apple ID, asking you to give Apple permission to your Apple ID basic info and the serial numbers of the attached devices. Once you give Apple permission, the Specialist will be able to go through and place the order using your Apple ID Balance. They're more than happy to help. You will receive order confirmation details immediately on your Apple ID e-mail address once the order is placed. The full amount may not be deducted immediately from your Apple ID Balance, however, Apple might book a partial payment from the balance when the order is placed.

This might also work in case your Apple ID Balance is insufficient for the entire purchase. Just make sure to have a CC or two on your profile before you give it a try.

I hope this was helpful in case you're in a hurry before a product goes out of stock.

found solutioin!!! I added new Credit card and bought 9,89$ ipad pen c-type charger. order proceed , after 5 mins tried to buy new iphone 14 pro max , with my apple ID balance. thats worked for me guys. I tried million times to call apple , nobody helped me. today one great apple support told me working method. Thanks to that smart girl! good luck guys, I'm very happy :)

fix!!! after they said upper management was going to look at it. Did not get call back, just email.

when calling make sure you say that there’s a block on you’re account , because you loaded a lot of gift cards.You might talk to different techs ,until a manager deals with you and tells you that upper managers needs to look at the account.

So I added like a dozen GCs to my account yesterday and it wouldn’t let me pay using my account ID balance regardless of whether I tried paying a portion or the full amount and splitting it with a credit card. Called support and asked them to remove the purchasing block on my Apple balance. Received an email today from Apple saying that my account is ready to make purchases. I still couldn’t use my account balance to cover the entire cost of my order but this time I was able to cover most of it with the account balance and just paid $5 via credit card. So it appears as though Apple support was able to get the block lifted, at least to the point where I could use my account balance to cover most of the order. Using a credit card in conjunction gave me no payment authorization error today.

I got it! Didn't work by splitting the order with a credit card, or placing an order with a credit card first then placing another order using the account balance.

It's basically what @blakefromwayne has said. I called 800-my-apple first, the presale rep was familiar with this problem and transferred me to another rep, who asked me to place an order with another payment method and then editted it to use the account balance.

It took a while for the second rep to see the order at her end, so you should probably place the order before calling.

What worked for me and you might do if you really want to use those credits is to call up and place the order with a credit card and have the rep then change the payment method to your Account Balance. The salesperson I spoke with said that he comes across this problem regularly.

He placed the order and then changed the payment method afterwards. I used my Apple Card. The charge showed as pending for a few days and then went away.

SOLVED: hoping to help by sharing a very similar experience I was having with not being able to use my apple account balance toward a product purchase through apple’s website. I received a gift card and had redeemed it to my apple account, but could not find a way to apply it to a purchase. 

Like many others on this thread I went through the extremely infuriating and cyclical experience with apple support via phone, being transferred back and forth between sales and support and getting a multitude of unhelpful answers. On two of those occasions the operators told me I couldn’t use my apple gift card to purchase apple products (only apps, music, etc through the app store), which is in direct contrast to the fine print on the actual apple gift card. Don’t take this for an answer! 

After being told someone would “look into my account within 24-48 hours”, I impatiently continued to try every solution suggested on these forums — I reset my phone settings, tried to remove and add the account balance to my apple wallet (a whole other issue), downloaded and installed the latest software update, all to no avail. 

As a last ditch effort I downloaded the Apple Support app and used it to text with their support team regarding my case. I highly recommend this option as it was MUCH less time consuming and painful than using the phone support system (no waiting on hold and you can send screenshots as needed). 

While I still had to go through one operator who couldn’t help, he was able to finally transfer me to a “specialist” who solved it right away. Her solution involved removing the apple care component of my shopping cart, and like magic i was able to finally redeem my account credit toward the purchase. I’m not sure if she did something else on her end, or if the elected apple care coverage was the actual culprit. Either way, you can add apple care within 60 days of purchase so her solution worked well for me.

I’m usually a big fan of apple, but the amount of people having to go through these hoops just to be able to use their own money is absolutely unreasonable IMO. I hope they can correct this issue soon or at least have more knowledgeable staff to aid in the process.

TL;DR: use the Apple Support app instead of calling to maintain your sanity, and try removing apple care from your cart to use your apple account balance toward a product purchase.