Anyone Having Trouble Purchasing AARP Gift Cards Lately?

[josumello]

11 hours ago, dickinson said:

Sadly, not for me.  I have to wait the 3-5 business days for their call back.  I hope I get one!

I had a similar problem with HAL gift cards. One big problem was with the AARP rep who was basically incompetent. Unfortunately each time I called I always got her!! Anyway on the third call I think she knew she was clueless and disconnected me. I called back and fortunately got a new rep. She was great. Expidited the problem to tech support, no 3-5 day wait.  They emailed me right away and fixed the problem. Moral of story: don’t be afraid to move on from a bad rep!!

[dreaminofcruisin]

8 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

Be careful what you wish for..................A few months ago I bought a Princess $500 gift card and my visa was charged. The gift card was never loaded. AARP would not help. I had to put a dispute on my charge card. It took 60 days because Visa gave Princess that long to respond and they never did. There are a few posts about the problems with gift cards on AARP. It is an a third party vendor so AARP claims no responsivity. There are better places to buy gift cards.

 

Do you know of better places that give an 8% discount?

 

[dickinson]

8 hours ago, josumello said:

I had a similar problem with HAL gift cards. One big problem was with the AARP rep who was basically incompetent. Unfortunately each time I called I always got her!! Anyway on the third call I think she knew she was clueless and disconnected me. I called back and fortunately got a new rep. She was great. Expidited the problem to tech support, no 3-5 day wait.  They emailed me right away and fixed the problem. Moral of story: don’t be afraid to move on from a bad rep!!

I received an email from them late yesterday afternoon.  Said it should be ok now but it is not.  I emailed back but have not yet heard back.  Don't know if they are working today on Good Friday so I might not hear back til next week 😞

[dickinson]

Just an update in case anyone is interested.  On Good Friday I did hear back saying they are still trying to untangle my account with my dh.  It has now been a week and have not heard back.  I tried calling the number they had on their email (they said I could call if necessary) but every time I call I get recording saying they are all busy and to leave a message.  I left a message yesterday morning but no one has called back.  Also, now that it is April when dh signs into his account (where we purchased the max in March) it now acts  like it is a new account and wants us to ok something so he can not even order more on his account!  This has been a very bad experience.  We need to do final payment the end of the month and this could cost us.  Next week I might try to delete both accounts and start again.  

 

Does anyone know if I set up a login in my sister's name (who will not be cruising) if we could use gift cards from her?  The one's I have just have a card number and pin.

[dreaminofcruisin]

1 hour ago, dickinson said:

Just an update in case anyone is interested.  On Good Friday I did hear back saying they are still trying to untangle my account with my dh.  It has now been a week and have not heard back.  I tried calling the number they had on their email (they said I could call if necessary) but every time I call I get recording saying they are all busy and to leave a message.  I left a message yesterday morning but no one has called back.  Also, now that it is April when dh signs into his account (where we purchased the max in March) it now acts  like it is a new account and wants us to ok something so he can not even order more on his account!  This has been a very bad experience.  We need to do final payment the end of the month and this could cost us.  Next week I might try to delete both accounts and start again.  

 

Does anyone know if I set up a login in my sister's name (who will not be cruising) if we could use gift cards from her?  The one's I have just have a card number and pin.

 

@dickinson -

Really sorry to hear you are having so many issues! WOW! I wonder why it seems to be just you and your DH? It's hard to figure out isn't it? It does seem like your accounts are screwed up somehow.

 

I see no reason you couldn't use some that were purchased on your sister's account. Think about it. She might have bought gift cards and given them to you as a gift. (What a nice sis! 😁!) The only "gotcha" might be if you set up an account for her and try and use a credit card in your name to pay for it? I don't know if that would cause a problem? Does she live close enough that as a back up plan, you could pay her to  use her credit card? Or be able to electronically transfer money to her?

 

So sorry to hear that this is happening! Good luck to you! I hope it all works out some way for you soon!

Edited April 6 by dreaminofcruisin

[dickinson]

@dreaminofcruisin  No, she does not live close to me.  I think the main issue we had was when we set up dh account we used my cell (he turns his on about 5x/year) and my email (I am on the computer much more than him).  He then purchased 5 gift cards. When I went to set up my account I called and asked if we could use the same email and cell.  No.  So we first changed his account to reflect his email and then set up my account using his cell (you need a one time code to set up).  It appears that I can log in but if I try to purchase any gift card it tells me there is a tech error and try again.  I did notice on his account it lists me and my email as an associate (or whatever they call it) member.  This means I have my own AARP card.  I am just very upset with their customer service... or lack thereof.  Ultimately, if I don't hear back from them the first few days of next week  I will first try to delete both accounts and try again.  If it doesn't work I will probably try to login as my sister and she would give me the code.  Of course none of this will help for our next cruise in 2025.

[dog]

Yes..

[suzyed]

On 3/26/2024 at 10:35 PM, Ellipooh said:

I can’t find the cards anywhere on AARP 😧

Thankfully I’ve already purchased my 5 for March, but I have two more cruises to pay off…

 

EDIT: explored the entire site and returned to the usual page, Princess cards were there again. But it feels sketchy

Look under "Rewards".  They make it very difficult for some unknown reason.  Each time I have to hunt and peck and finally do find it.

Edited April 7 by suzyed

[dickinson]

I just want to update everyone in case anyone is interested.  After my post #29 it took about another week (and my emailing again saying I was concerned by the lack of response) before I heard from them (never did get a call after I left the message).  Yesterday I received an email saying my password was changed.  There was a customer service number if you did not request this to be done.  So we called. We spoke with a very nice woman who helped both my dh (he also got the same email) and me.  We were on the phone a long time.  His account seemed fine although mine wasn't quite right and I could not order gift cards.  She said to give it a half hour (yeah right).  Anyways, later that night I got another email saying my password had changed and also an email from the Ombudsman.  This email did not make complete sense and also had a couple of sentences that were grammatically not correct.  It did say I should be all set.  I emailed back saying no I was not all set.  Around noon today they responded back and said the issue has been fixed and sure enough it was!!!  I immediately went and purchased the rest of the gift cards I needed (dh did his last night).  All in all it was a VERY stressful experience but we needed to go through it because of all the $$$ we saved on this cruise and hopefully will save on our cruise next June.  

[mogley1]

So, in the end, what exactly was the issue?  Did they ever explain the actual problem and the solution to you?  I'm going through the same exact scenario and have yet to see a solution.

[AlpacaBag]

I also had issues buying from the aarp rewards site for the first time, had to open a ticket, waited a couple weeks, then went to buy and it didn't work, then had to email them, wait more, and finally they said should work - and it did.

 

I am not sure what causes the problem, but I suspect it's a combination of user events. I.e. things that line up when a user signs up. For example, when I signed up, I was:

 

Using Firefox with their strictest privacy protection enabled which sometimes causes websites to act funny, given that the protection blocks cookies, some scripts, etc... I also had an ad blocker enabled and the email I used at signup was not a typical domain, like hotmail.com outlook.com, or gmail.com, comcast.net, etc etc etc.. it was my firefox relay service)

 

So I think because of those things, their system flagged me and stopped me from buying until someone on their staff whitelisted my account.

 

It's admittedly very frustrating and I do wonder if it is by design to inhibit the max number of sales since many users will get frustrated and give up.

[dickinson]

10 hours ago, mogley1 said:

So, in the end, what exactly was the issue?  Did they ever explain the actual problem and the solution to you?  I'm going through the same exact scenario and have yet to see a solution.

Read my post #31.  This explains what I did when I set up both mine and dh account.  Even though I changed dh email address to his own it still would not let me buy gift cards.  Customer service said I wasn't enrolled in AARP rewards.  Other than that, the Ombudsmen email said they had to untangle both of our accounts.  Basically I really do not know what the issues were.  Seems to me that when I updated dh email to his own and then I set up my account using my own email with his cell number that our accounts had different info.  The other strange thing was that dh bought gift cards in March just before I set up my "account".  April 1 comes and he tries to buy more cards but he can't!  Why?  Who knows.

 

Just as an FYI to people, it appears when they are fixing things that instead of an email explaining that they think it is fixed they first send an email that says your password has changed.  There is no explanation other than if you didn't request it to call customer service.  When we did that, customer service gave us a temporary password and then we went in with that and changed the password to something we wanted.  They should send an email explaining things and saying they have put a temporary password on the account and for you to go in and change it.  They don't and they don't necessarily send another email saying things are all set. (I finally did get that email).

[davy jones]

On 3/26/2024 at 5:22 PM, cruisinsince75 said:

I have been trying to purchase a $500 gift card to apply towards our cruise since last week.  Princess gift card has disappeared from the rewards listings, but do show up when I search by name.  I have only purchased a $100 gift card previously, just to test it and that was over a month ago.  When I try to purchase the $500 one, it takes me to the payment screen and I get an error message.  It has happened on over 10 try's since last week.  I talked to our cruise mates and they were able to do theirs over a week ago.  

Happened to me too (on work computer).  I called AARP.  It might have something to do with pop up blockers.  I went onto home computer and it worked fine.

[sadiwest]

My mind is literally blown.  New to AARP I just learned this here, tooday. 

Quick question...if for some reason trip is canceled (well in advance) do the funds go back to the cards (am

assuming but never used them)?

Edited April 10 by sadiwest

[AlpacaBag]

9 minutes ago, sadiwest said:

My mind is literally blown.  New to AARP I just learned this here, tooday. 

Quick question...if for some reason trip is canceled (well in advance) do the funds go back to the cards (am assumingbut neverused them)?

 

Edited as it was incorrect. See below post.

Edited April 10 by AlpacaBag

[dickinson]

4 minutes ago, sadiwest said:

My mind is literally blown.  New to AARP I just learned this here, tooday. 

Quick question...if for some reason trip is canceled (well in advance) do the funds go back to the cards (am

assuming but never used them)?

 

3 minutes ago, AlpacaBag said:

 

Our TA told me it goes back as Princess credit for a future cruise.

I have read many times on here that if you cancel your cruise the money goes back on your gift card so make sure you save the card # and pin.

[AlpacaBag]

4 minutes ago, dickinson said:

 

I have read many times on here that if you cancel your cruise the money goes back on your gift card so make sure you save the card # and pin.

 

Thanks, I updated my post.

[dreaminofcruisin]

16 minutes ago, dickinson said:

 

I have read many times on here that if you cancel your cruise the money goes back on your gift card so make sure you save the card # and pin.

 

22 minutes ago, sadiwest said:

My mind is literally blown.  New to AARP I just learned this here, tooday. 

Quick question...if for some reason trip is canceled (well in advance) do the funds go back to the cards (am

assuming but never used them)?

 

I have had it happen. It does go back to each individual card, so keep those card and pin numbers until you are back from your cruise!