Netflix has been bumping up the cost of plans over the last few years, although some people are still grandfathered in on a standard plan. One way people have been mitigating some of the subscription price increases has been by buying Netflix gift cards at a discount when stores have offered sales, when the Pepper Rewards app has boosted earning rates, etc. Unfortunately for some Netflix customers, there’s now an issue when redeeming them.
Roman has shared that he has a grandfathered plan and is being prevented from being able to apply a Netflix gift card to pay for his subscription. This is frustrating because it means he now has a Netflix gift card with no way to redeem it personally. He’d been able to redeem Netflix gift cards for his plan a few months ago, so this appears to be a somewhat recent change.
FWIW, the terms and conditions of Netflix gift cards don’t list any kind of exclusion for grandfathered plans. There is wording in there that says you have to have a valid Netflix membership and I guess they could try arguing that a grandfathered plan isn’t a valid membership in their eyes, but that would be shady of them. Even more so because the terms also state:
You may apply the Netflix Balance to any Netflix membership plan
That wording seems pretty cut and dried.
Hopefully this is just a glitch with their system rather than it being a malicious change on Netflix’s part. Reports online state that Netflix is in the process of phasing out grandfathered plans in Canada and the UK and that the US will likely be next. This issue might therefore become moot in short order, but for now it’s worth being aware of if you’re still on one of those older plans.
Is this just the old “basic” plan, Or are there multiple grandfathered plans?
Yes, it’s the old $11.99 basic plan. The change is intentional according to their website FAQs (https://help.netflix.com/en/node/59987):
“Can’t redeem Netflix gift card
If you can’t redeem a Netflix gift card, try the following steps for the error message or issue you are experiencing.
‘Sorry, gift credits can no longer be used on your current plan.’
If you see this message, gift cards can’t be redeemed with your current plan. To redeem your gift card, take these steps:
Interesting. I’m not sure how this is legal but the timing makes sense. They eliminated the $11.99 basic plan in July and per Stephen’s post, “He’d been able to redeem Netflix gift cards for his plan a few months ago”. I wonder if this will eventually apply to all ad-free plans in an effort to keep moving people to ad-supported plans?