Using multiple gift cards at Apple Store

You should be able to. If not, you could always phone your order in.

Not 100% sure about online purchases, but I know that you can definitely do it at a store. Maybe try calling Apple first to see if they'll let you do it online (I don't see why they shouldn't though), so you don't have any troubles later on.

Be careful. I recently purchased something from the online Apple Store, with a small balance to be charged to my credit card. The order went through fine, and they shipped my order.

*After* I received the goods, I start getting emails from Apple stating that one of the gift cards was "used up". They asked if they could charge the difference to my credit card. I said "NO". I explained that I have a receipt indicating everything was kosher with the original order, I knew for a fact that all of the gift cards were fully charged and unused, and asked Apple to investigate further. Apple store rep said that they would do so. Two days later, I see a charge on my credit card for something resembling (but not exactly) the contested difference. I took it up with my credit card company. Apple completely fumbled the charges to the credit card and to the various gift cards. The amounts were crazy. Long story short, I got my money back from the credit card company.

From my comparison of my receipt at the time of order, to the receipt generated after I got Apple's emails, it looked like a bug in their online store software that happens when you mix a bunch of gift cards with a credit card.

I don't know if this would happen with an in-store purchase. The online Apple rep said that if a gift card was used "recently" at a brick-and-mortar Apple store, and then used at the online store, it would NOT correctly reflect the balance on the card. The systems are not linked in real-time. How broken!

suneohair said:

They actually limit you to 4 in the online store. I placed my order yesterday. I did use it in conjunction with a credit card. Hopefully it goes through all right. So far it seems to be fine.

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I had used 3 gift cards of varying amounts. Chances are your order will be fine, but my recommendation is: visit your order history now and print out the page detailing your order, just to be safe. Also, use their online page that checks the balance on your gift cards (if any balance remains) and print out the results.

can you consolidate gift cards? i know at most places, you can. i've done it before at a few different stores.. mostly around xmas when i don't want to be carrying around 30481 different cards for only 4 different stores.

might be another option to look into, if you end up with a bunch of gift cards and find you can't use them all at once.

xfiftyfour said:

can you consolidate gift cards? i know at most places, you can. i've done it before at a few different stores.. mostly around xmas when i don't want to be carrying around 30481 different cards for only 4 different stores.

might be another option to look into, if you end up with a bunch of gift cards and find you can't use them all at once.

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I wish I had 30481 friends!! There really shouldn't be a limit on the number of cards that you can use, they should be as useful as real money, not less useful.

thagomizer said:

I don't know if this would happen with an in-store purchase. The online Apple rep said that if a gift card was used "recently" at a brick-and-mortar Apple store, and then used at the online store, it would NOT correctly reflect the balance on the card. The systems are not linked in real-time. How broken!

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This sounds like a major loophole, doesn't it?

1) Buy something that will ship that day or the next from Apple's online store with the gift card and credit card
2) Go to the b&m Apple store and reuse gift card to buy something else and pay in cash.
3) Hope the item ships before they figure out the two are linked.

How could they possibly let the two systems not be linked. Sounds pretty stupid on their part.

Gimzotoy said:

This sounds like a major loophole, doesn't it?

1) Buy something that will ship that day or the next from Apple's online store with the gift card and credit card
2) Go to the b&m Apple store and reuse gift card to buy something else and pay in cash.
3) Hope the item ships before they figure out the two are linked.

How could they possibly let the two systems not be linked. Sounds pretty stupid on their part.

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I think the problem occurs when you do it the other way around -- use the card at the b&m store first, then use it online. Maybe the b&m purchases are uploaded to the other system every so often.

Probably you can't cheat the system because you need an Apple ID in order to buy something on the online store. (And a credit card as well? This I don't know...)

If they find that the card balance doesn't hold up (or *think* that it doesn't hold up, as in my case) they will come after you, and they know who you are from your Apple ID.