How the credit behaves
Redeemed credit sits on the account. Each billing cycle the subscription price is taken from it until it runs out, then billing returns to whatever payment method is saved.
Two things follow that people do not expect:
- The subscription does not stop when the credit does. The card on file picks it up again automatically. If nobody wants that, the recipient has to cancel deliberately.
- A price rise eats the credit faster. Credit is an amount of money, not a number of months.
Tell the recipient roughly how many months it covers and that billing resumes afterwards. It is a small sentence that prevents an unwelcome charge.
Who bills them
This decides everything. If the subscription was started through a phone or tablet app store, the app store bills them — and a Netflix code cannot touch that. The credit will sit on the account unused while the app store keeps charging.
Have them check the billing section of their account. If it names a platform rather than showing a card, this is the wrong product and an app store code is the right one.
Availability
These cards are not sold in every country, and where they are sold they are country-specific: a code from one market will not redeem on an account registered in another.
Because availability genuinely varies, tell us which country the account is in and we will confirm what is possible before anything is issued rather than after.
What it is good for
- Giving somebody a few months of a service they already use and pay for directly.
- Starting a subscription for someone who does not have one.
- Prepaying, for people who would rather not have a recurring charge.
More on the billing question in gift cards for subscriptions and renewals, and on this category in the streaming guide.