1. Introduction to US Apple ID payment/recharge methods
Currently, there are three payment methods available for Apple ID in the US. The following is a brief introduction to the advantages and disadvantages of each method and the cost of obtaining it.
Paypal in the US
- Requirements: US mobile phone number, US IP address, VISA/Mastercard credit card (issued in China is OK)
- Advantages: You can purchase directly after opening iTunes pre-authorization, which is very convenient
- Disadvantages: Initial registration is more troublesome and easy to be controlled by risk; and you need to have a long-term available US mobile phone number
Gift card recharge balance
- Requirements: VISA/Mastercard credit card issued in China
- Advantages: Low requirements, various official channels for recharging
- Disadvantages: Recharge in advance, it takes 10 minutes to arrive
Credit/debit card
- Requirements: VISA/Mastercard credit card issued by a US bank
- Disadvantages: high acquisition cost
- Virtual card: either the service provider is unreliable or the handling fee is high
Apple Pay
- This channel is in beta testing. Because VISA/Mastercard does not have clearing qualifications in China, it is impossible to generate the corresponding Apple Pay virtual card. The acquisition cost in China should be extremely high.
In summary, considering the time and energy cost, the simplest way to recharge is to buy a gift card for yourself and redeem it after receiving the gift card email. The following introduces the official channels for purchasing gift cards.
2. Use gift cards to top up your US Apple ID
Official Apple US Gift Card Purchase
- Official link: click here
- Amount selection: 10-200USD any amount
- Discount: irregular, but less; credit card cashback can be considered
- Delivery time: theoretically within 4 hours, actual within 10 minutes
- Payment method: VISA/Mastercard credit cards issued in China are all acceptable
Purchase process overview
- After clicking the official link to enter, select the card style, amount, sender and recipient. You can fill in your own email address here. It is recommended to choose the email address of foreign service providers such as Gmail/outlook/yahoo to avoid not receiving emails.
- Click Guest Checkout to pay as a visitor.
- Fill in the credit card information and billing address. For the billing address, it is recommended to choose five states without sales tax, because it is uncertain whether the purchase of virtual products will be subject to more tax due to different billing addresses.
- Official link: click here
- Conflict of interest: This site is applying to join the Amazon Afflicate project. If you join successfully, the link here will be replaced with a rebate link, that is, if you click the link above to purchase, this site will receive a rebate.
- Amount selection: 25-250USD any amount
- Discount: There are many discounts; you can consider credit card cashback
- Time to receive: In theory, instant, not in practice
Buy gift cards from Walmart online mall
- Official link: Click here
- Amount selection: Only fixed amounts such as 15/25/50/100USD can be selected
- Discount: Compared with various offline gift card discounts, there are basically no discounts online
- Delivery time: In theory, instant, no longer than 48 hours; not in practice
Other channels
Among the official partners of Google Play Gift Card, most of them sell App Store/iTunes Gift Card, but there is basically no reason to choose them.
Recharge service
The channels of Taobao are completely untrustworthy. I searched several stores on Taobao, and they all mentioned to be cautious and avoid region locks. This is probably an insult to the user’s IQ. If their gift card is recharged through a regular channel, Apple has no reason to block the accounts, and there is no need to use a VPN when switching accounts. (In fact, using a proxy will cause the CDN node for downloads to become the United States, and software downloads are very slow.) The account can only be blocked because the gift card is recharged through stolen credit cards or other illegal channels. Apple has not received the money, so it will naturally prohibit the activation of this gift card, and it is understandable to ban the account that uses such illegal gift cards.
Because physical gift cards often have a 5-15% discount in American supermarkets, plus credit card cashback, etc., it is possible to buy gift cards at the original price or even lower than the official price, and with real recharge. But there are still risks, and it is only recommended to buy from friends you know.
3. Virtual VISA/Mastercard credit card
Generally speaking, the easiest way is to buy a gift card on the official website and give it to yourself. You can use the normal recharge of Apple ID, but if you need to enable family sharing and other functions, it is necessary to link the payment method.
It is recommended to use the virtual VISA/Mastercard credit card service of figtcards.com, because it is the official partner of Google Play Gift Card, so it is more reliable.
Click Visa Gift Card to purchase, the amount is 10-500USD, you can choose the amount. Choose the card with the lowest balance of 10USD, which requires a handling fee of about 5USD (very high). It is recommended to use the gift card to top up the balance after linking.
