Thanks for the update. I'd be most grateful if you could fill in a few more details if you have the time, in particular:
1) Do you need to register again for the US account using a fake US address or can you set up an account on the US store with a UK address? Do you then make sure to not enter a credit card so that the system doesn't see a UK billing address (which I guess is the one it really cares about)?
- I had to create a separate iTunes account, you need to log out of your current account and set up new, I think there were details on the forums here on how to set up an account without credit card details, I set this up intially on my laptop, you did need a US address but I just used my works office address in California, if you can set up an account without credit card this works.
2) Would I be right in assuming that the iTunes card you bought off eBay must be a US dollar one so that your US account will accept it for redemption?
- Yep I picked up a $50 iTunes card for $57 which given the savings I'm making in the cost of books is worth it.
3) How does iTunes handle having multiple countries? Are they all tied to the same Apple ID so purchases from across both the UK and US stores show up in all the lists of your purchased stuff in iTunes and, once it's synced to your device, whether it came from the US or the UK is invisible?
- Basically all I do is log out of one account on the idevice and log in using the other account which gives you access to that store (you'll need separate email addresses for the various accounts), only thing so far I haven't yet found a solution for is books purchased on US iTunes to sync between my iPhone and iPad when I'm logged back into my default UK account. I can have the books on both using the method above but they syncing of position seems to only work through the iTunes it was bought from.
Sorry for all the questions but the devil is in the detail. I have almost £100 credit on my UK account so it'll be a while before I'll be allowed to change store so I can't experiment myself at the moment.
- No prob, I now have $25 left on the US account which is still there when I log into that account, so if you can set up accounts with US iTunes without needing credit card details you should be fine, I'll look and see if I can find those details.
Update: do a search in the forums for iTunes setup without credit card, there are plenty of posts on this.