When I redeem a gift card, my balance appears to be just the value of the card redeemed and is not added to the credit balance I previously had. Have I lost my previous credit balance? How can I find out my actual balance?

I think I can explain what's happening here. I believe that Apple's servers don't regularly (or accurately) push the available iTunes credit balances to your devices. This happened to me twice (I thought I'd lost about $15 on two ocassions). When I followed up, the Apple support folks showed me my account history and balance, and it was correct. My account balance really was at zero before I topped up with a gift card, but my iMac and iPhone didn't correctly report that, so it appeared as though I'd lost credit.

Your balance can easily end up going to exactly zero by making a purchase which depletes all the available credit and then draws the remainder from the credit card which is linked to your account.

I don't know of an easy and reliable way of viewing your balance and past-transaction history. I no longer trust the credit amount reported on my iPhone.

Hi gingjock,

Welcome to the Support Communities!

The article below will show you how to review your account and report any issues to the iTunes Store.

iTunes Store & Mac App Store: Seeing your purchase history and order numbers

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2727

I hope this information helps ....

Have a great day!

- Judy

Heres my story. April 20th I redeemed three $10 iTunes gift cards. Before I did that my Account Balance showed as being $31.17. So I figured I'd have a new balance of $61.17 when I got done right?? WRONG. The revised balance was $46.03. So I sent an email to Apple. In essence they said that my beginning balance was not, in fact, $31.17 but rather $31.17 minus the previous two purchases I had made ($15.14) that were not deducted from the $31.17 balance yet. Those two purchases were completed 17 and 3 days prior to April 20th. I gotta call BS that it takes Apple up to 17 days to revise an iTunes account balance after a purchase. That makes no sense.Most posts and info I have found that the account reconciliation takes place almost immediately after a purchase-certainly not 17 days. To clarify I have no credit card or pay pal account tied to my account. So this problem is not related to anything related to that. Its funded only with iTunes gift cards.

I also found that Apple conveniently does not allow access to or show people the "credits/deposits into" their iTunes accounts from gift cards. Only purchases are shown. WHY NOT?? How convenient. This smacks of a giant scam. $2 here. 5LBs. there. 30 Pesos from her. 6 Euros from him. From hundreds of millions of users. Now that adds up to a LOT. I hope Im wrong but..... I have yet to get an acceptable response from Apple on whats going on here.

I have the same problem as the previous post. We redeemed a new itunes gift card but my previous balance that was on my account is gone. All it is showing is the amount of the gift card redeemed. How do I get the original money back on my account?

Thanks!

I have the same problem too. Judy, thanks but your response did not help. I noticed before that after redeeming a gift card, my account only showed the gift card credit, not the amount that was previously on the card. Then, today, I redeemed a 10 dollar gift card when I had a balance of $6+. The $10 gift amount was not added to the $6+, my balance changed to only the $10. I thought it might be a sync problem between my ipad and computers but nothing changed after I synced. Please help.

Thanks for that helpful info, csglinux! I just scrolled down to check out my iTunes purchase history and was surprised to find that the "iTunes" card that I had was used up when I purchased something from Apple (I purchased Scrivener when I had an $8 balance, having no idea that that balance was going to be used towards something I purchased from APPLE (I thought my gift cards would strictly be used for iTunes, but its actually for any Apple purchases). When I redeemed my new $10 Gift card just minutes later, I saw my balance go from $8 to $10, not understanding what had happened to the $8. Now I understand. I was also surprised to see that in my "Purchase History", my monthly Pandora charge is also going towards my purchase histories (I had no idea that Pandora was somehow linked to my "Apple Purchases", but there it was in the history! Good to know!). So yes, many of the balances don't update immediately, but have been long used on other iTunes OR Apple purchases that you may have made (including Pandora in my case). And, just as you said Linux....your balance can easily end up going to exactly zero by making a purchase which depletes all the available credit and then draws the remainder from the credit card which is linked to your account.

I hopes this helps other out there who are having the same question! 🙂

Same problem here. I just lost my previous $9 balance. My iPhone and computer both show it's gone :-(

This problem seems to have been around for many years. Probably most people don't notice or don't miss those few odd $s after redeeming a new gift card.

This is happening to me as well... I redeemed $55 in cards since 10/22. And all it shows is the very last card that I redeemed which was $10.... The same thing happened on my daughters account too. I emailed support and the sent me a link to check my purchase history.... Which I has already done! My credit is missing. My purchases do not exceed my credit!....something is wrong.

This just happened to me. I got a new iTunes gift card and "redeemed" it, which deleted my existing balance of $2-something (I can't remember the exact amount and did not bother to make a note of it since I was sure the gift card would only ADD value)!!!

I just had the same thing happen. I reveiwed my purchase history, but it doesn't give you a history of the credits you've put on the account, only the purchases. That is no help. I tried to report a problem, but that went no where.

Same thing just happened to me. logged out and back in thinking maybe a sync issue. nope . . .

Guess Apple can just take your money OR they can accurately display it. though the amount was not

a lot (less than $2), it still my money. Petty Theft?

It looks like a lot of people have had this problem, and it just happened to me. I had a $23 balance before redeeming a $25 gift card. Did anyone who had this happen actually get this resolved? Had I known about this issue, I wouldn't have redeemed the gift card until using up the previous balance.

The scripted response from Apple seems to be "look at your purchase history", but I have been carrying that balance for months and haven't made a purchase in a long time.

Anyone who's had a positive resolution from this issue, please chime in and let us know what happened.

HHave you figured this out yet? I just went to redeem 2 gift cards. First one was for $25. I redeemed it and it showed I redeemed $25 but I had a remaining balance of $9? I went to add the remaining $15 onto my account and I now have $24... I redeemed $40 and haven't used any of it yet. What is going on??

The same issue here. I had about $20+ on my gift card but now i cant see it. Tried contact apple customer service, got no where.

I just posted a question bout this. Anyone know what the **** is going on this is ridiculous! I just lost 30$