Max Apple Account Balance UK (and gift card rant)

[Eccentric Arcanist]

Hello everyone.

I just returned a MacBook Pro that was gifted to me for Xmas and the balance got put on gift cards.

I was told by the staff at the Apple Store in Milton Keynes, England that there would be no problem adding the total sum of the gift cards (£2599) to my apple account balance. I could then purchase another device through the apple online store.

I decided to quickly research this before redeeming the gift cards and a lot of people are saying the max apple account balance is $2000! Does anyone in the UK know what the limit is here (perhaps £2000)?

The whole thing seems ridiculous and I can’t find any info in the apple support pages. It seems wrong that apple will allow people to load gift cards onto their account and then suddenly hit them with a hard cap with no notice. It leaves people high and dry with x amount in their apple account and the rest on physical gift cards (but apple account balance cannot be used in physical stores and there’s no way to use the remaining physical gift card balance to complete the purchase online). What the hell!?

And now I’m also reading apple imposes limits on using gift cards even without adding them to your account balance. Apparently it’s a maximum of eight per transaction (or maximum of four if using the Apple Store app). Again, what is this nonsense?

 

[NoBoMac]

Several threads here about the 2,000 limit. Here's a recent one:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-account-balance-limit-of-2-000.2375362/

Just tried to "buy" a gift card >2,000: would not allow (see attached). So seems like 2,000 is a hard (undocumented) limit for the account.

But per the UK help page (and US), this situation should not be an issue for most people imo. Quote:

Apple Gift Card(s) - up to eight + Apple Account balance
[...]
You can use up to eight Apple Gift Cards at a time when you purchase online from Apple or if you’re placing an order by calling 0800 048 0408. You can use your gift card(s) with an Apple Account balance and Apple Pay or one credit card.
[...]
You can use up to eight Apple Gift Cards for one transaction when you purchase at an Apple Store.

So can put up to 2k in the account and use the remaining card(s) for the rest of the payment. In theory, looking at possibly doing 18k in balance plus 2k valued gift cards.

In the 2.5k case, Apple Store employee would need to issue 10x 250 valued cards to mess up the number of cards restriction (just get 2x 1k + 500 or 5x 500 cards)

But, yeah, bad suggestion by the store employee to add to the Apple account if intend on buying in person.

Would be interesting to see where you saw "there’s no way to use the remaining physical gift card balance to complete the purchase online". Does not make sense as Apple knows what the remaining value of the card is, so should work similar to a full-value card (ie. look up value, deduct from purchase, new net purchase cost to go on some other payment method when online or via toll-free call).

Personally, I always order whatever I want to buy via the Apple Store app/website and then go to the store (or ship to home if pre-ordering a new device), so no issue with the limits imposed and not wasting time making the drive to the store and find out not in stock.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I’ve made many, many purchases from the Apple Online Store using Apple gift cards (not redeemed to my account). Granted, I’m in USA - but I’d be surprised if it’s not allowed in UK also.