iTunes gift cards + FFS: better discounts? How to (best) use them?

[ogreve]

Hi,

In preparation of Black Friday I want to inform myself of something that may be very interesting to all of us.
A few days ago a forum contributor mentioned they had bought something with an iTunes gift card that was bought on 20% discount. By PM I then asked how these cards work exactly and where they can be bought.

The person responded to me, but now I'm not 100% sure as to how to proceed, as they indicated that the iTunes card(s) need(s) to be redeemed in iTunes first, BUT that the account HAS to be set up to the US iTunes Store, as it otherwise will not work...

That will most likely indeed be the situation for the US based players (as I know that Apple can be very picky with allowing people to download apps that are only present in a store that falls out of their geographical region). However, I live in (continental) Europe (Netherlands) and my Apple ID uses the local App store. When items are being sold through FFS, the prices for me are always in Euros and the times that I bought gems I could indeed make a normal in-app purchase, paying in Euros, without having to switch stores to a US one...

Now, I'm HOPING that perhaps our friends from Apple will have some nice Black Friday sales of a.o. iTunes gift cards that can directly be digitally redeemed (i.e. through some code, rather than having to receive a physical card first). They may do so or not, and the same goes for any of their resellers. If either of them offers such cards at discounts, it would be best to make our FFS Black Friday acquisitions with such cards so we save some Dollars/Euros/Pounds/etc. too, whilst TL still gets the same amount of money, resulting in a win-win situation for everyone (as we are then likely to be buying more things than we would without using the cards).

Sounds great, but... I don't want to accidentally buy "the wrong thing" and be left without being able to use it, hence blowing money on it. As I've never used these gift cards I would therefore like to be 100% sure as to WHAT to buy and HOW to use it.

Can someone over here and/or from TL (Elsa? Regina? Kooky?) perhaps tell me the following:
-What kind of iTunes card would I have to buy?
-Should they (in my situation) be specifically for the Dutch store, or would any card in Euros work?
-If not: do the cards for ALL players anywhere in the world HAVE to be for the US store?
-Would cards in Dollars, Pounds, or other currency than Euros work for me?
-How does it work exactly? Can I just buy a 'downloadable gift card' (or something like that) and then directly redeem it in iTunes and then instantly make an acquisition from FFS?

I hope someone can give me the answers. Also, it would be great if we could share information as to where these cards may be available at discounts here. I noticed e.g. that all week long a "very well known" MAJOR online shop sounding like a South American rain forest has discounts. I'm not sure if they (will) offer such iTunes cards at discounts one of these days.
It would be great if we could all help one another and TL to identify sources where such cards are available at discounts. If it is not allowed to post about the locations in the forum, I'd love to share such information via PM....

Thanks in advance and cheers,
Olafo


Disclaimer: You're welcome to share info on deals, but please note that we're unable to provide assistance with purchases that are outside of the game (ex: gift cards). -Elsa

[[S8] Elsa]

Sorry! This is a question best answered by Apple since they're the billing agency handling the gift cards. It would be remiss of me to offer you a solution that might not work out. ;<

[kooky panda]

Hi,
It would be great if we could all help one another and TL to identify sources where such cards are available at discounts. If it is not allowed to post about the locations in the forum, I'd love to share such information via PM....

Thanks in advance and cheers,
Olafo

I just saw (In Texas) Costco is selling $100.00 iTunes gift card for $85.00 and $60.00 iTunes gift card for $54.00 ( you have to have membership to purchase)

Also on BestBuy.com- If you buy 1 card, you can get 40% of the second card. (promotional code- itunesdeal )

[calvinxx]

I work at Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada and we had an ITunes gift card sale for 15% off this week. I bought it, loaded it to my Canadian ITunes account and bought gems since I had a gem sale on. It doesn't matter what country you are in just go and buy an iTunes card and load it onto your Apple ID account

[chippychan]

I believe you need to buy iTunes gift cards that are in the same currency as your iTunes account. For example, I'm in Canada so I imagine only iTunes gift cards in Canadian funds will work with my account. It wouldn't make sense for iTunes cards that are in another currency - like US funds for example - to work on my Canadian iTunes account since they are completely different currencies and the exchange rate between the two is so different ($1 USD = around $1.35-ish Canadian funds right now).

So, to be safe, always buy an iTunes card that is in the same currency as your iTunes account.

As for redeeming an iTunes gift card; you just need to go to the iTunes/app store, go to your account (it's at the bottom of the front page for me), and choose 'Redeem', then enter the redemption code on the back of the card. You can even just take a picture of the code instead if you want... I love how easy it is.

BTW, thanks for the heads-up on the Shoppers Drug Mart Canada iTunes card sale calvinxx! I'll have to pick one up. :)

[ogreve]

Thanks everyone!
I see that "redeem" button too, right where you mentioned it to be.
Over here in the Netherlands most shops probably don't do anything with Black Friday so my best bet is to find some online iTunes codes that work in Euros. I'll start looking around to see if I can find some over here. If anyone spots them in Euro currency I'd be very grateful to hear about it...:P

[ogreve]

OK, earlier today I did some homework on this. As far as I gather, indeed you need to make sure to only buy cards in the currency/country of the store you're signed up to. This is visible in a variety of ways (iOS -> Settings, iTunes under OS X, and in FFS simply by checking in which currency the sales appear).
Earlier already I figured out a way to have two distinct iTunes accounts; one on the Dutch store (which I normally use) and one for the US store (which I rarely use, with exception of downloading free games that are only available in the US store). So, this is possible but there's a catch: when not living in the USA and when you don't have a US issued credit card, you can only do it the following two ways:
1) Choose 'none' as payment type. You can then only get free content.
2) Associate an iTunes gift card with the account. This would be the required step for using US iTunes cards.

In iOS you can switch the iTunes account you want to use. I switched today between the Dutch and US ones and that works fine; when I switch to the US one, the prices in FFS appear in US Dollars and when initiating a gem acquisition you are properly taken to the right US store.
I didn't continue from there, but I'm assuming I could buy US iTunes cards and redeem them to my US account and then use them.

Now.... the question becomes where the best deals can be had. There are several apps that can be downloaded and that give advance insight in which BF deals can be had where (I assume this to be limited to the USA, but perhaps other territories too). I installed one and checked around. It seems sales of iTunes cards tend to be in the 15%-20% range or the deal mentioned above: one at full price, and a second one at 40% off (essentially the same as buying two cards at a 20% discount). Maybe Apple doesn't allow higher discounts than 20%.

From what I gather from reports about previous BFs, Apple itself apparently tends to have disappointing BF sales, and the sources where I read that, state that better deals are offered by their resellers.

Searching online for Dutch iTunes cards proved to not be too difficult: there's a sale at one of the most famous stores in The Netherlands (i.e. 'Hema') and they have the best deals I've seen: 20% off on single cards, including the 25 Euros ones. They can be bought in the store and online. Their sale is from November 24th - December 6th.
BF is not a big thing in the Netherlands (not yet anyway), but it's a thing on the rise. A major electronics store (i.e. 'Media Markt') has a huge BF campaign on TV etc. There's one of those stores where I live, at a 2 minute walking distance from Hema. On Friday I can easily visit both stores to see what's available. I don't know yet if Media Markt will have discounts on iTunes cards (I couldn't find what they're going to do in terms of discounts).

As for US deals: I hope someone comes across deals that are substantially better than 20% off. If so, I may choose to go for that (if I can buy an online code with a credit card or ******). If not, then it's far easier for me to simply buy the Dutch cards.

As a final tip: you may (or may not) want to look around on sites like **** etc. to see if you can score iTunes cards on the cheap from people that received them as gifts and don't intend to use them. I looked around a bit over here and came across some people selling e.g. 25 Euro cards for 15 Euros. However, that's really a leap of faith. I personally am not going that way: I couldn't find any in the city where I live and this is typically the kind of thing with which I suspect con artists to have a field day.

So, that pretty much sums it up! I hope this helps and I hope someone comes across significantly better deals than the 20% discounts in the various stores (those of interest to me are the Dutch and US ones). If not, then the 20% seems to be the best deal to expect.