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]

Hello, we can go over your payment options with you. Please send us a Private Note.

[vzw_customer_support]

Hello, we can go over your payment options with you. Please send us a Private Note.

[HighTechnology]

vzw_customer_support,

Rather than asking each of us to send you a private message, it would be a better use of everyone's time to post publicly how we are supposed to apply the gift cards to our balances so as to not preclude the auto-pay discount from being lost.  I realize that there are particular facts and circumstances associated with individual issues (which would suggest a one-on-one discussion), but that's not the case here. 

Rather, Verizon used these gift cards as the promotional incentive, but has left many people trying to figure out how to apply them.  I'm confident that Verizon didn't intend them to cause a loss of the auto-pay discount, but it seems like this is going to take efforts on behalf of the customers.

FWIW, MY PERSONAL OPINION, is that Verizon should have found a way for us to apply all of our gift cards to the account at once, and then let the auto-pay discount apply whenever there is an automatic payment OR when there is a zero balance due (without a credit card payment having been made in the interim).

[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