The most popular gifts to give to friends for Christmas or other occasions are certainly gift cards, which have a prepaid credit chosen by the person giving them and are available in many shapes and colours. These are easy to redeem for anyone, even those without much tech knowledge.
Gift cards are available for many modern online accounts and allow the recipient to purchase apps, games, devices, renew streaming subscriptions, and more. In this guide we will show you how to give apps and credit on the iPhone Store, Android, Amazon and Windows, and we will provide you with instructions for buying gift cards directly online for the most popular services.
Gift apps and Apple Credit
You can give an Apple Gift Card to your friends who own an iPhone, iPad, Mac or any other Apple device, directly from the Apple website . To do this, you must open the site, select the email mode, choose an Apple theme, select the amount from the predefined ones or enter a custom one, enter the recipient’s name and email address, the sender’s name and your email address , and choose a custom message.
You can pay using Apple Pay or a credit, debit or PayPal card, which you must enter at checkout. Alternatively, you can purchase the Apple Gift Card on Amazon and send it to the recipient via Amazon’s mailing system.
How to redeem the Apple Gift Card
The recipient will receive a 16-digit code by email that they can redeem on their Apple account, depending on the device they have. On iPhone or iPad, open the App Store, tap the profile icon in the top right, select “Redeem Gift Card or Promo Code,” enter the code manually, and click “Redeem Code.”
On a Mac, he’ll open the App Store, click on his profile name in the bottom left, select “Use Gift Card,” enter the 16-digit code, and click “Redeem Code.” On Windows, it will open the iTunes application, click on “Account” at the top, select “Redeem Code”, enter the 16-digit code and click on “Redeem Code”.
Gift apps and Google Play credit
If you’re looking for the perfect gift for someone who owns an Android device, a Nest Mini or uses Google Play services a lot like books, music and movies, then the Google Play Purchase Code is the perfect choice. This Google authorized gift card is available on Amazon and the purchase process is very simple.
To purchase the code, go to the dedicated page on Amazon, select the desired amount, enter the recipient’s email, confirm the sender (your name), enter a greeting message, select the quantity, enter the sending date (which you can also postpone) and finally press the “Buy now” button.
You can then use Amazon-supported payment methods to purchase the gift card and send it to the recipient as an email message.
The recipient will receive an email with the code to redeem the gift. This code can be used on any Android device, on a Windows computer or on a Mac.
How to redeem the gift card for Google Play and Play Store
On Android devices, you can redeem the code by opening the Play Store app, tapping your profile picture in the top right, selecting “Payments & Subscriptions”, clicking “Redeem Code”, entering your gift card code and pressing ” Uses”. On PC and Mac, you can redeem the code by going to the “Redeem Google Play Code” page from any web browser, entering the code and pressing “Redeem”.
To verify that the code has been used correctly and check the remaining available balance, you can access the “Google Play balance” page from any PC or tap the “Payment methods” item in the “Payments and subscriptions” section in the Play Store app on an Android device.
How to give Amazon credit
Giving credit on Amazon is a quick and easy way to give a gift to anyone who has an Amazon account and loves to buy technology products online. To purchase an Amazon gift card, just visit the dedicated page , enter the desired quantity, the recipient and a personal message. The gift recipient will receive a code to enter on the Amazon voucher redemption page and associate with their account. The available balance can be checked on the dedicated page and easily recharged if necessary. Learn more about our guides to last-minute gift-giving and Amazon gift giving.