I am trying to help someone upgrade to 50GB of iCloud storage so they can back up their iPad. The thing is they do not want to use a credit card (and understandably so) because they want to strictly limit their spending (and the spending of any family members that might use it). However, it appears that you cannot use a gift card because it is a recurring expense. This seems a bit silly since I have put enough credit on the account to last two years which is about the same as the lifetime of a credit card. Any way round this ?

You can use a Gift Card - or rather I am using Gift Card Credit to pay for my 50G upgrade. Apple take £0.79 off the credit each month.

Are you sure you haven't got a credit card associated with the account as well ?

You're correct that I do.....but there is quite a lot of credit and little danger of the CC being used for some time! In fact, if I don't buy more things more often the CC will have expired (and will be no use to Apple) before the £0.79/month has used up the credit!

But therein lies the problem, you *have* to have a card registered. I think this is unreasonable. It's the very people that don't really understand the ecosystem that are most at risk from purchase runaway, and also losing their photos because their 5GB storage backups kept failing. I feel that Apple sometimes don't think these things through.

How do you think they should do it and what problems do you think you will encounter by registering a card?

If you use family sharing, the account owner can control every purchase. Apple must have some way of collecting a subscriber payment, and even using a gift card, you could use up the credit before the charge happens.

The friend I am talking about are an elderly couple who live in Kenya, a further complication being there is no concept of iTunes gift cards in Kenya and I had to sign them up to the UK store, and take out a gift card when I visited them. They have had an iPad for a year and have taken to it like a duck to water, but really only for email, Facebook and taking photos. They do not understand the error message they get saying not enough room for a backup to iCloud. They wouldn't have a clue about the concept of in-app purchases, but they do know they don't want to give their credit card to a way of spending money they don't understand. I agree with them, particularly as they have a teenage son who probably does understand about in-app purchases !
You ask me how Apple should do it - they should allow you to pay up-front for a year's subscription with credit from a gift card. What's the problem with that ?

As it happens I have a very similar situation back home where I have an iCloud account assigned to a computer that runs a church sound booth and projector system. There are umpteen people who know the login credentials and from time to time I apply a small credit with a gift card. There's no way I would link my credit card to it for unlimited purchasing. So I cannot take advantage of paying to upgrade our iCloud storage.

Add them as a family member to your account. You can then control all purchases.

You can buy 'pay any go' visa cards on online.

Did I mention they live in Kenya. That would be a very strange approach and not something I would want to have to manage myself.

Are they physical cards, or do you just get a number ? Would they be purchasable from Kenya ? Surely Apple would have the same problem with these as they might run out ?

I think you can get actual cards or virtual cards. I do not knowvif you have to buy them from uk or not. Just search web for details.

Apple would not know -they just see a valid account.