Gift card balances are easy to lose track of, partly because Amazon deliberately makes the balance quiet once the money is in your account. Here is how to check it, how to add a card, and the rules that catch people out.
Checking what you have
On the website, open Account & Lists, then Gift cards. The balance sits at the top of the page, along with a history of what has been added and spent.
In the mobile app, tap the menu icon, then Account, then Gift cards. Same information, same place behind a different door.
The balance is attached to your account, not to any physical card. Once redeemed, the plastic is worthless and can be thrown away. There is no way to move the balance back onto a card, or to another account.
Adding a card
- Go to the same Gift cards page.
- Choose Redeem a gift card.
- Type the claim code exactly, including any dashes.
- Confirm.
On a physical card the code hides under a scratch-off panel on the back. Scratch gently with a coin; digging with a fingernail can take the code off with the covering, and a partially destroyed code usually means a trip to customer services with a photograph of the card and the receipt.
The app can read the code with your camera, which avoids mistyping. Codes mix letters and numbers, so it is easy to confuse a zero with the letter O.
The regional trap
This is the one that causes the most disappointment. Amazon gift cards only work in the country they were issued for.
A card bought in the United States cannot be redeemed on the UK site. A German card will not work in France. The sites are legally separate businesses with separate accounts, and there is no conversion mechanism.
If someone abroad sends you a card, check which store it is for before doing anything else. The code will usually be accepted only on the matching regional site, and you may need a separate account there. That account is free to create, though the balance stays locked to it permanently.
How the balance gets spent
Amazon applies the gift card balance automatically to eligible orders before charging a card. You do not choose this each time, and the balance is used first by default.
That is convenient right up until you were saving it for something specific and it quietly paid for cat food. At checkout there is usually an option to untick the gift card balance for that order, but you have to notice it.
The balance does not cover everything. Third-party sellers are generally fine, but some digital purchases, subscriptions and certain services may not accept it, and it cannot be used to buy another gift card.
Expiry
In most markets Amazon gift card balances do not expire, and in several jurisdictions consumer law prevents it. Rules vary by country, so check the terms on the card itself rather than assuming.
Promotional credit is different. Money given as compensation, or as part of an offer, frequently does carry an expiry date, and it is spent before your ordinary balance. If a balance seems to have vanished, promotional credit expiring is the usual explanation.
The scam worth knowing about
Gift card codes are the preferred currency of telephone fraud, for one reason: once a code is read aloud, the money is gone and cannot be traced or reversed.
No tax authority, utility company, police force or government department has ever asked to be paid in gift cards. Nor has Amazon. Neither has your employer, your grandchild, or anyone else who has telephoned you in a hurry.
Anyone asking you to buy gift cards and read out the numbers is committing fraud, without exception. The urgency and the plausible story are the tools, and there is no situation in which the request is legitimate.
If it has already happened, contact Amazon customer services immediately. Occasionally a code that has not yet been spent can be frozen, and speed is the only thing that helps.
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