Getting Amazon.com gift card credit into a UK account

July 14, 2016 6:40 AM

I'm in the UK and I have a US Mechanical Turk account (I'm not completely sure how this happened or if it's allowed -- Amazon sent me an email inviting me to sign up so I did and it worked). Now I have $15 in gift card credit on Amazon.com but there doesn't seem to be any way to get it into my UK account.

I tried sending myself a gift card but you can't buy them with GC credit. I have a brother in the US who probably wouldn't mind sending me $15 if I gave him the credit (although that might not be practical if I make a lot more money on MT), but it seems like the only way to get it to him would be to give him my Amazon.com password and let him use my account. Is there something I'm missing?

posted by Chenko to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Why can't you just log in to your own US Amazon account and buy something for your brother (and have it shipped to him)?
Why does he have to log in?

He could even set up a specialized Wish List just for this purpose.
posted by jozxyqk at 6:52 AM on July 14, 2016

Response by poster: I could do that but I'm thinking about making more money on MT -- it would be annoying if I had to buy stuff for him every time I want to get money out. Seems like giving him my password would be easier.
posted by Chenko at 6:57 AM on July 14, 2016

I can buy things from Amazon.co.uk with my US Amazon account, I think - like, I can certainly log in and put things in my cart and all that, and I think I have bought things this way in the past (not willing to actually try it right now!).

Is it stopping you from using your US Amazon account with Amazon.co.uk and your UK shipping address?
posted by mskyle at 7:03 AM on July 14, 2016

Response by poster: I can buy things on Amazon.com and get them shipped to the UK but I end up paying so much for shipping that it's not worth it.
posted by Chenko at 7:09 AM on July 14, 2016

Right, but what I meant was: you log out of your UK Amazon account, fill up your amazon.co.uk basket with stuff, and then when you check out you log in with your US Amazon account. Is that not possible? It seems to be possible for me, but I 1) don't have a UK address to ship to and 2) don't really want to buy anything on amazon.co.uk right now.
posted by mskyle at 7:45 AM on July 14, 2016

Response by poster: I don't think that's possible -- I can't log in to Amazon.com from Amazon.co.uk. They're basically separate accounts with the same log in details, so if I enter my US username and password I just log in to my UK account (which can't access the US GC balance).
posted by Chenko at 7:59 AM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was given Amazon UK gift cards when I was living in the US with a US Amazon account (I'd changed my main account country when I moved). Had the same problem - couldn't spend them on US Amazon. But IIRC, my Kindle account somehow remained registered with UK Amazon. So I spent the gift card credit on Kindle books. It may be worth seeing if you can change country settings temporarily to use the credit that way (if Kindle books are your thing, of course), then switch your address back to the UK once it's been spent?
posted by cardinalandcrow at 10:19 PM on July 14, 2016

Have you tried contacting customer service? Maybe they can work something out for you.
posted by sldownard at 10:03 AM on July 16, 2016