When we purchase from iTunes the balance is not coming off of the gift cards. We have family sharing on but when my kids purchase songs they are credited to our credit card and not the gift card that is already in their account. What's wrong?
The information on the Apple website is clearly at odds with the information that you received in the Apple Store.
Family purchases and payments - Apple Support
First, their store credit will be used to pay the partial or total bill. The remainder will bill to the family organizer's card.
Really, this could be so easy to understand and cater for everyone's needs if "Ask To Pay" was limited only to amounts attributable to the family organiser's card. In other words, free apps and apps that were inside the users credit wouldn't go to the family organiser for authorisation.
For those worried about age appropriateness of apps or those wanting to control every app on their child's device, that's what the parental controls are for.
Children under the age of 13 cannot be removed from the Family Group, so if the issue is because of Ask to Buy for an child's account, then the workaround wouldn't work.
And based on this support article, it sounds like you can only switch your family group once a year. Not sure if leaving then joining the same group is considered switching your group or not, but could be risky:
Leave Family Sharing - Apple Support
The remedy is to put the credit on the Organizer's account, not the child's account.
With a regular Family Sharing purchase, when the person initiates the purchase, it goes through like any purchase, and checks the balance on the Apple ID doing the purchasing first.
But with Ask to Buy, the "purchase" portion of the transaction has not even begun when the Ask to Buy request is sent. It is not until the "approval" is given that the purchase itself is initiated. And I don't know what would be required to send the logic off to another Apple ID to see if there was a credit before completing the purchase where it was initiated.
But, that's why it does it that way when Ask to Buy is involved.
Cheers,
GB
It was frustrating to get to this response, but here's the answer for the original question as to "Why my credit wasn't applied in a Family Sharing purchase..."
How iTunes Store purchases are billed - Apple Support
About Family Sharing purchases
...
iTunes Store credit isn't shared with other family members. If the family organizer has a credit on their account and another family member buys something, the cost of that item doesn't deduct from the organizer's iTunes Store credit, but bills the payment method that the organizer has on file.
** Also, further, I was told that there is no way to transfer these credits unless you have the actual gift card that was used to deposit the credit to your account. And who saves the physical gift card once the credits have been loaded into your account?
The original post was from 2014. So in the year 2017, Apple has done nothing to resolve this.
Finally, found a workaround although I can't imagine why Apple iTunes Product Managers don't understand it and fix this.
I was hesitant when removing/adding a member to Family Sharing as I wasn't sure if Apple had any restrictions on how quickly can you add a member back again to the Family Sharing. I seemed to work fine, as I did it only once but they may have some restrictions that I didn't see, if you try this technique several times within a stipulated time. Watch out!!
Good luck, but seriously, Apple should fix it wth a straightforward process. Best suggestion to apple would be to accumulate all member's Gift card/credits, and roll them all to the Owner's account.
I have my own account, no sharing, accessible on iPhone, ipad and iTunes on laptop. Have always been able to load gift cards then see them used automatically but I have made 3 purchases since I loaded a xmas gilft card. The $15.00 card is still there and the purchases have all gone to credit card.
iTunes 12.5.3.17
Something is broke.
We have this issue too. Value from a redeemed Gift card from my daughters Birthday seven months ago is still sitting in her child account untouched whilst my credit card makes all her purchases.
Just been to the Apple Store in Westfield London UK and was advised: "Your daughter will not be able to touch those funds until she evolves out to have her own Apple ID. Your best bet is to call up Apple iTunes and have them re-allocate those funds to your family parental account and have her then draw the funds through the normal channel."
The reason given by Apple was that you as the family sharing administrator are still the proxy for all fund payments: child accounts can't operate their own funds - the Gift card should have been redeemed by you the parent against your account.
Seems ridiculous to me but there you go, I'm sure the 20 year old "dudes" at Apple that design policy know better than all of us.
I hear you Apple Iceman, but "First, their store credit will be used to pay the partial or total bill. The remainder will bill to the family organizer's card." is absolutely NOT what happens (in the UK). After seven months of trying to access those funds for her I am resolute that it's fair to say that information is simply wrong.
CF
What Apple fails to realize is that more than ever there can be grown up (adult) family members living together under the same roof! It's almost humiliating, and definitely frustrating to have to deal with permissions if we want to share purchases!
Hi Angela1313,
I see that you have a question about using gift cards with Family Sharing. Here is an article with some information that my be pertinent to this issue:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5035
Learn more
Learn how to send an iTunes Gift or redeem iTunes Gift Cards and content codes. If you're using Family Sharing, the credit you redeem will only be available to you. iTunes Store credit on your account isn't shared with other family members.
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities!
Cheers,
Braden
I have read the link sent about the Gift Cards/iTunes store credit and Family Shard and continue to have no such luck. Each time someone wants to download a song despite $10 to $25 credit in their account (both teenagers) it bypasses and goes to asking permission to use the credit card linked to the Family Share account. We have logged out and back into iCloud and iTunes and no success getting the store credit to work for them.
Thanks,
Daniel..
This is happening in our family, as well. My daughter redeemed an iTunes gift card, and the money shows up when she's logged into iTunes. However, when she tries to purchase a song, it asks for my permission. I wasn't sure why it was doing this, so I approved it. Apple charged my credit card $1 AND deducted the cost of the song from my daughter's iTunes balance. I would love to find out how she can redeem her gift card without my credit card being charged at the same time.
Braden,
It appears that Angela is asking a very straight forward question but you are not giving any useable advice. Clearly several other people have the same question but there is no response. If "you can't do that" is the answer say so - although that is a pretty lame answer. If there is a work around give it out. But don't simply give up a link to useless information that doesn't answer anybodys question.
This is not an answer to the question, you have bragged about your new family share program and now it seems you have quite a few bugs to work out. We have 3 members to our family share, myself, my wife and a shared account for our kids. Our kids have $75 in itunes card credit on their shared account and it still wants to bill my primary account whenever they want to make purchases. I would simply remove them from family share and let them redeem their money on things however they, some of the apps they want to make in app purchases on were purchased originally by me and would have to be re-purchased by them defeating the entire point of family share. Please come up with some REAL answers to this problem.
The gift cards aren't working! I'm headed to the Apple Store for answer. It shouldnt be this difficult to pick a payment metho. It's a basic feature on majority of ecommerce sites.
Just an FYI, everyone here is a fellow user. Not Apple..
When we purchase from iTunes the balance is not coming off of the gift cards. We have family sharing on but when my kids purchase songs they are credited to our credit card and not the gift card that is already in their account. What's wrong?
