Verizon gift card and Autopay

[nbasic]

So I get all these gift cards from switching back to Verizon, and I'm told I can use them to pay my monthly bills....well, that's partially true.  I'm set up on Autopay, so it appears there is no way to use these gift cards to pay your bill without losing the Autopay discount of $10 per line.  So I'm not going to give away $40/month in Autopay discounts just to be able to use these gift cards...that's senseless!  You can never get a straight answer from anyone at Verizon customer service, it seems they have no clue what they are doing.  I was recently told I can apply the gift cards before my bill posts, when there is still $0 balance......but that again is bad info from customer service.  I guess I should have just stayed with T-Mobile!  Verizon is worse than it ever was with their customer service.

[Tigerstep]

Eww. I wouldn't wish T-mobile's poor coverage on anyone.

You can pay a partial and let it draft the rest. I do this all the time on our account and have for years, still getting the autopay discount. You get disqualified for not having a balance to draft or paying any partial with a credit card.

[nbasic]

So how do you set up the partial payment? When I tried to do it, it told he I was exceeding the maximum allowed. I even tried $1 and it said that was too much.

[HighTechnology]

I am in the same exact situation, just a few days ahead of you.  I tried to make a partial payment before the bill posted, and it told me that wasn't possible.

My latest bill posted a few days ago, and based on what CS told me, I had to leave some outstanding balance --  so I made a partial payment and left some balance out to auto-pay.  My payment will post 1/12, but based on what CS told me (and is consistent with what is posted above), I am not expecting an issue.

FWIW, if you have a lot of gift cards ($1,600 in my case), it will take months to use them all. To avoid losing any value, I am going to apply $200/month between the posting date and the auto-pay day (in my case I also have FiOS, so I'll putting $100/month towards my FiOS bill as well).

[nbasic]

See, that's where customer service is bad.  They told me there is no way to pay using gift cards after the bill posts (account shows amount due), and be able to retain my Autopay discount.  I thought about what you both said, leave a partial balance that will "autopay".  I swear when I tried that a couple weeks ago it gave me a message about "losing line discounts".  I'll have to try it again.  I'm in the same boat, I have $1000 in gift cards.  I guess they don't expire, I could save them for phone upgrades down the road....just figured to use them to pay a few months of bills!

[HighTechnology]

It will say that making a payment will (may?) remove the autopay discount.  I am taking a chance this month and will see what it does.

FWIW, I do remember reading the terms of auto-pay saying a credit card payment would invalidate auto-pay discount, and a pay-in-full would as well (since there is nothing left to pay).  

It would be nice if someone from Verizon would confirm this approach of a partial payment via gift card will not invalidate the automatic payment.  I do note that Verizon recently switched these promos to Verizon giftcards (from generic giftcards that could be used elsewhere), so this is another new experience for them that they really didn't explain well (to customers, and in many cases, their own employees).

[vzw_customer_support]

HighTechnology, you should not be losing your Auto-Pay discount if you use a Verizon Gift Card to pay any partial balance. When processing a payment, as long as you don't see a message that states "Just a heads up, your Auto Pay discount will be removed this month if you make this payment with a credit card. However, you can pay with a check or debit card to keep your discount" then nothing changes in terms of the monthly Auto-Pay discount. Does this provide clarity?

AlanS_VZW

[HighTechnology]

Thank you, AlanS. 

We now we have confirmation from Verizon that we can make partial payments with these gift cards,  but we must leave some amount outstanding to auto-pay via debit card/checking account/Verizon Visa card (all of which qualify for the discount). 

[JoeSchmoeJunk]

Hi, were you able to successfully make a partial payment with a Verizon gift card?  The Verizon rep who answered your question never explained how to do so step-by-step, so of course my experience doesn’t seem to match what they said would happen. Even though I’m on auto pay it keeps telling me I need to split the payment and after entering the gift card details brings me back to the make a payment screen, expecting me to pay off the rest of balance with another form of payment.  Which of course I don’t want to do. I simply want the remaining balance to come out via auto pay

[JoeSchmoeJunk]

Oh, and because it wants me to split the payment after I enter the gift card details, it never applies the gift card. My only options at that point are to use an additional form of payment to pay the remainder of the bill or cancel the transaction. 

It really shouldn’t be this difficult to apply these Verizon gift cards to the wireless account and use them however we want. Basic accounting, debits and credits....

[HighTechnology]

Yes, I made the partial payment, and then the autopay triggered a few days ago for the remaining balance.  So far, so good -- what remains to be seen is if my autopay discount will still apply -- I won't know that until early February as my bill cycle is near the end of the month.

HERE'S WHAT I DID TO USE THE GIFT CARD:

Login to Verizon

• Click ACCOUNT,  and then PAYMENT OPTIONS
• Click PAY ANOTHER AMOUNT and enter the partial amount you want to apply from the gift card.  Click CONTINUE
• It will now say "Let's start with your payment method", click ADD/EDIT PAYMENT METHOD
• There will be a few options presented, the last of which is GIFT CARD -- select that, and click ADD METHOD.

You should be able to take it from here... fill in the gift card info and it will show the balance, etc...  If you can't figure it out from here, post back and I'll try to take you through the rest of the steps (but I remember it being pretty intuitive from here).

Somewhere along the way, if it asks you if you want to do a split payment, say NO  - that's if you were going to use 2 methods to pay the partial amount or to pay the remaining balance with another method.  IF YOU PAY THE FULL BALANCE OFF YOU'LL LOSE THE AUTOPAY DISCOUNT FOR THE MONTH...

ONE SUGGESTION: I don't know if this is required, but I chose to leave an outstanding balance to be paid by autopay that was more than my monthly autopay discount.  For example, I have 5 lines (so $50 autopay discount).  I left more than that as I am afraid that if the autopay is less than the discount, it could mess something up with the autopay discount (e.g., if I only left a few dollars to autopay, it might have a problem applying the $50 discount, which could cause issues down the line).  While Verizon only has said something had to be left behind to autopay,  I've had too many issues with them that I don't trust the systems will get it right...

[CubonesPhone]

Thank you!  I did exactly as you suggested, left $41 dollars for the autopay (4 lines) to deduct on Feb 10.  We'll see if it works.

I have a spreadsheet going to track my 4 gift cards, I dare not apply them all at once.  At this rate I will need 8 months to use them all up, what a pain...

[LHAD22901]

Did you ever figure out the amount to leave in your bill, when paying by gift card, for auto-pay to work?  Is it, as you mention, $10 per line, to keep in the balance?  Or can the number be lower?  Just wondering where the sweet spot is.  Thanks!  (And Verizon reps, feel free to jump in - I figured the rest out, just wondering how much I need to leave due)

[GiftCardsShouldBeEasy]

Hi @LHAD22901 ,

I have 5 lines, but only leave $20 as a remaining balance for Auto Pay for the month.

Not sure how low the number can be, though.

[Susan2020]

I pay giftcard and leave about $3 balance for AutoPay to pick it up. Did it for several months no issue. 

[vzw_customer_support]

Please meet us in a private note.*Cecile

[nbasic]

I get the same exact results as you, it wants to set up payment for the remainder of the bill, like you said, if you hit "no", it will cancel the transaction of using the gift card for the partial payment!  This is so ridiculous I can't even believe they make it this difficult!

[HighTechnology]

While it's silly we have to jump through some many hoops to do this,  but I was able to do it last month.  My autopay posted for the remaining balance, and what remains to be seen is whether they will properly reflect the autopay discount.  My bill preview shows it, but with Verizon's systems being very disconnected from each other, who knows if it will...

My next bill should publish in about a week, so I'll try to remember to revisit this thread with the exact steps and any additional detail (in case I left out a step above).

[vzw_customer_support]

HighTechnology, we understand the importance of making sure you are aware of your payment options. We are glad to see that your AutoPay went through after processing a payment with a gift card. Here is a helpful link to view more details http://vz.to/2vjtjTp. 

[ApplyGiftCard]

The response is just dumb.  Not addressing the issue being posted. How to apply gift card for payment and still get autopay discount.

I tried this...

Prior to autopay posting. Paused the autopay. Paid through gift card and turned back the autopay. 

Will keep you guys posted if this works.

[HighTechnology]

OK, my new bill posted, and here is how to do it.  It comes down to making a payment of another amount (which is a partial payment) and not a split payment (since that's two manual payments from separate sources).

Login, and go to BILL > PAYMENT OPTIONS

Choose PAY ANOTHER AMOUNT (do not choose the split payment option)

Enter the amount from the gift card you'd like to apply (leave something for autopay to cover), and click CONTINUE. 

You will get a pop-up saying you can make another payment to cover the remaining balance -- Click NOT NOW

It will ask how you want to pay -- select ADD PAYMENT METHOD, then select GIFT CARD and click ADD METHOD. 

It will then prompt you for your gift card number and will show the balance, and you should now be able to process the partial payment.

Thank you for attending my Verizon Billing Gymnastics 101 course -- if you follow all of these steps, you deserve an A+!

The systems here are so antiquated, it's beyond my comprehension.  In my (unique?) situation, I've been a customer for 3 months, and I am 0 for 3 on the autopay discount applying at all.  I used a debit card for my first autopay, and then once I got the Verizon Visa card, I switched the autopay to that card (and applied a partial gift card last month).  The system shows I'm signed up for autopay and paper-free billing with a Verizon Visa Card as the payment method, the front page of the bill says it will auto pay on the 12th of the month, yet my bill doesn't reflect the autopay discount, and the left margin promotes that I'd save $10/month per line if I signed up for autopay.  So basically part of the system knows I have autopay, but sadly the part that applies the discount doesn't...

WARNING: DO NOT CANCEL YOUR AUTOPAY, rather follow the steps above which are consistent with what the Verizon reps instructed above.  In a discussion with a very knowledgeable Verizon rep (finally got one) about the autopay issue I'm having, I asked him if I should just cancel and re-enroll in autopay, and he told me it takes Verizon 2 billing cycles for the autopay discounts to reappear if you cancel (I assume that is one cycle to de-enroll you and another to re-enroll you).  So if you cancel autopay, you may lose out on up to two months of discounts...