Spotify Family - Redeem Gift Card

[tify]

I just received a $60 gift card I requested. Unfortunate when I went to redeem I got a you can't use this credit since you are already premium. I assume this is because you are limiting family plan accounts for some unreasonable tactic just like the messy problems in actually creating family plans. There is no reason to make things this difficult.

[MattSuda]

Gift cards cannot be used with the family plan.

I suggest you contact support so they help with this and maybe work something out 

https://www.spotify.com/about-us/contact/contact-spotify-support/

If you get an automated reply email telling you to check the help section or the community, you need to reply back to it.

Support usually replies within 24-48 hours.

[tify]

Spotify GIFT cards specifically say they can be used on existing accounts and don't exclude Family plans.  And why would they?  Best Buy doesn't want to give me my money back for a gift card already scrached off so basically Spofity GIft Cards are like a paid free trial for new accounts.  

Evil marketing.  Wish I didn't actually like the service because companies that make it this hard to work with when the market holds many alternatives don't have a long term outlook.  I will advise Best Buy corporate and try to get Spotify cards removed from the stores.  Happy to do my part.

[pavicich]

Has this been resolved yet, Spotify? This still seems misleading and frustrating.

[billy21]

I'd like to know ... are there any Spotify reps watching this post?  If so, can you please let us know when Spotify plans to have some sort of family gift card plan?  My son gave me a voucher for 6 months of Spotify (or a year of Pandora ... my choice) ... then my wife said she likes Spotify and wouldn't mind having a premium account too ... I think it's a complete load of **bleep** that you can't simply add an account to an existing premium account and pay the difference.  (in my case...I'm on the 90 day trial and my wife has the 30 day trial ... so I may just end up back over with Pandora for another year).  What to do ... what to do ...

[pavicich]

I'm still watching, with an aging Spotify gift card sitting on a shelf in my house. 

[vinbos85]

Same problem here.

Payed for my Spotify premium with gift cards for years.

Now that I have Spotify Family I cannot redeem them.

grrrr

[rspz]

Same here.   #FAIL spotify.  Please enable Family Plan Gift Cards - the holiday season is approaching.  What better way to get a FAMILY exposed, hooked and converted than to accept gift cards for Family Plans?

[joshpjones99]

I really don't get this.  I get my family gift cards for Netflix, Hulu, Spotfy with out issue.  one payment for the year and i'm done.  No bleeding my budget dry month to month all year.  I love Spotify and so does my family.  Moved to the family account (thanks for catching up to Apple Music and creating a cool Family Plan btw).  Apple Music allows Gift Cards for family but my in house system only works with Spotify and Pandora. Please change this odd rule and allow people to give and recieve cards.  Love to start asking for them from friends for holidays too. 

[melisshunt]

I'm having the same problem and am so angry. 

[cervelo64]

Agree completely - this is ridiculous, unnecessary complexity.

[matbrewer396]

Disapointed! Just got £40 of gifts card and car use them 😕

[mcorr]

Ive been taken in by this "gotcha" also. Spotify you listening?

[sevengroove · Accepted solution]

For anyone still wondering about this, it looks like there's a workaround. Here's a snippet from a recent chat I had with one of their support agents:

As stated in our Terms and Conditions, it’s not currently possible to pay for a Premium for Family plan using a gift/e-card. 

However, we totally understand your frustration, and we don’t want to see you miss out, so we’ve devised a temporary workaround for you.

If you subscribe to Spotify Premium (not Premium for Family) using the gift card as payment, then upgrade your account to Premium for Family directly after, the gift card value will be automatically converted to your new Premium for Family plan.

That’s it! We appreciate your understanding and hope you find this workaround useful.

[billy21]

That's great and all, but if I already have the family plan why can't we just apply our gift cards to the main account?  It really sucks if I (or my wife) get a gift card from a friend, relative, or another source. 

Since I am already on my wife's famliy account.  Are you saying I would need to leave the family plan, apply the card to my own personal plan then rejoin the family plan again?

[sevengroove]

Good question, I hadn't thought of this issue because I am new to Spotify Premium. It looks like the workaround would be to cancel your family plan altogether (for you and your wife) so that you're on Spotify Free, and then follow the steps in my earlier post. Redeeming your gift cards will make you a single Premium member, and then you go and do the switch to Family. All your preferences and playlists will be there for you. I agree that it does suck though, it would be so much easier if you could just add the credit without any fuss. 

[pavicich]

Also, somewhere I saw a limit to the number of family plans that you can join in the same 12 month period. So, you can do this once, but I don't think you can do this repeatedly.

Not a bad idea if you have a card you need to get rid of, but not a good solution in the long term.

Thanks!

[Jnsnielsen]

Has anyone figured out how to use the gift cards if you already have a family plan?  My kids spent $90 of their own money to buy gift cards for us and then we wasted an hour on Christmas Day dealing with the help desk.  I don’t understand why they don’t accept them since they are not discounted cards, they are real money that should be able to apply to any type of account.  Bad business and there are other music services out there.

[cervelo64]

Yes I had the same problem last Christmas and after swapping emails with Spotify support they made it possible to use the gift cards for our family plan. It wasn’t straightforward but it worked. I can’t remember the exact process but I will search my email to see if I can find the solution. I do believe that Spotify had to do something on their end.

[mcorr]

After our issues last year applying gift cards to a family account, somebody gave use $20 in gift cards again this year. I don’t want to nuke all our playlists going back to a personal account to upgrade back to a family account. So I guess they are getting regifted.

You’re right, this is idiocy. They either hate families or like jerking people around.

I suggest calling their marketing department or writing a letter. Or switch to one of the other 5 major streaming services that do take gift cards 🙂