A not-so-obvious finding about Spotify gift cards: Gift cards are not worth a dollar amount when redeemed with Spotify, they are worth X months, where X = (dollars paid for card / 10). No student discount, holiday pricing, or anything else can be applied. Furthermore, when a gift card is redeemed, it is instantly converted to its month value as calculated above. This action cannot be undone.

All this is apparent in the fine print of the gift card, though IMO exactly what they mean is really not obvious until after one has hit the 'redeem' button.

My story: my family bought me a spotify gift card for $60, having seen that there was a student discount, and wanting to get me a nice Christmas gift by letting me get Spotify for all of 2015 (which would cost me $60). They should have given me $48 cash, in retrospect, as I would have been able to buy 3 months of $1 Holiday pricing and 9 months of student pricing after that.

I didn't know that gift cards worked as they do at that time, though. I went online, went to try to start a subscription at the $1 price, realized that my 'gift card' counted as a payment option, redeemed it, and had a sinking feeling in my stomach as it told me that I now had a subscription through June, and nothing else.

The error was mine, technically, I could have read the fine print, but I still felt like I had made an understandable error, and that even with the fine print and the inability to use a student discount, a reasonable company would understand that I had wanted to buy the $3 for 3 months deal before redeeming my card.

I contacted customer service with the following e-mail.

Hello, I have already redeemed my gift card ([card number]), but I realize now that I did so in error. I wanted to use the gift card as credit against the holiday deal. Furthermore, I planned to activate spotify student as I am a college student. As such, I was hoping to get the full $60 of the gift card, which my family really tried to select as a gift to give me Spotify for the year.

If I had known that the gift card would give me six months regardless of the price, I would have paid for the three months at the $0.99 price outright.

After all, I would like to be a long-term customer. But I feel as though I've lost (at least) the three-months-for-three-dollars for which I was excited to sign up. Is there anything you can do to help me?

I got the following in reply:

Hi there,

Thanks for getting in touch and Happy New Year! Let me clear things up for you.

I've checked your account and I can confirm that you successfully redeemed your gift card. Your prepaid Premium will expire on 2015-06-30.

The Holiday Offer you are referring to, was available to our customers who sign up via a recurring Subscription. Keep in mind that the offer is no longer available. (note: this was sent a few hours after midnight January 1; my e-mail was sent on December 31 11a.m. EST)

The Gift Card that you've redeemed on your profile is what we consider a prepaid payment method, and this was the reason you couldn't sign up for the Holiday offer.

The prepaid methods are only available for the duration of Premium stated on the card itself and they cannot be used in combination with other promotions, such as Holiday Deals, Family Plans and Student Discounts.

Regarding the student discount, you can find out whether you're eligible for it by manually entering your details at this page. Bear in mind that this can take up to 12 hours, and if your university or college isn't currently listed, you won't be eligible for the discount at this point in time.

If you have more questions be sure to drop me a line, and remember to check out our Community for some quick answers and guides.

Have a wonderful day!

[withholding name]

i understand the terms, I understand that my gift card was gone after I redeemed it. but shouldn't a reasonable company see the spirit of the thing? If I pay for the rest of my year at Student pricing, my family will have wasted about $42 compared to buying with cash. Could someone at Spotify not offer to credit me a few months at the $1 rate and maybe win me as a longterm customer? Moreover, could someone at least express their sympathy, if they're powerless to help?

I have really liked Spotify up to now, and even now would like to be a long-term member, but the total lack of sympathy shown here makes me feel almost like someone who walked into a scam, and I think any time a customer feels like that after attempting to get some recourse, it reflects quite poorly on the company's customer service.