Buying Gametime with gold clarification

I just want to clarify an MVP’s statement (from another thread) that if you have enough gold, you can buy 1 month gametime? So if I don’t want to spend $30 for 2 months, I can just buy a WoWtoken for $20, sell it then when my gametime runs out I can just log in and the game will enable me to spend gold for 1 month gametime?

Yes as long as you have the gold in ur bag not in mail or its spread around 1 realm you will be able to use that gold to buy game time.

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Ok thank you. Makes more sense to buy that way right now instead of buying 2 months right away…

Personaly i prefer buying prepaid 60day game time cards but thats me.

Bear in mind that once your account lapses it becomes a veteran account and will have social restrictions placed on it until more game time is added.

You won’t be able to sell that token after your time expires, so you’ll want to aim for a couple days beforehand.

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Yes exactly, I’ll buy a token about a week before.

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Note that by buying a $20 token, to turn into gold, to turn back around into 30 days of game time, you end up spending 33% more for the same time purchased “normally” in a two-month block. For ten dollars more, you could just buy two months of game time.

Also it’s worth mentioning that the value of the token today may not match the value of the token whenever your game time runs out. If the token gives you ~140k today, but the token value goes up to 165k by the time you need one, you’ll need to come up with that extra 25k on your own.

Best of luck either way.

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It should also be mentioned that the most cost-efficient way to purchase the smallest amount of game time is to purchase a monthly subscription and cancel it as soon as it’s billed. It’s a bit more of a hassle, and requires a credit card or PayPal account, but it’s functionally identical to purchasing game time in 30- day increments.

Plus, you get a bonus day in January, March, May, July, August, October, and December.

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See, sometimes I read an entire thread before responding. Rarely, but it does happen.

And this is why. You just nailed my EXACT thoughts.

$20 for a month of game time vs $30 for 2 months.

So in 3 months you would spend $60 for 3 months of gametime as opposed to spending the same amount for twice as much.

Out of curiosity, how do you plan to buy the game time OP? If it is a credit or debit card, why not just purchase a subscription for a month, and then cancel the reoccurring sub and just renew it every month?

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Well my brain is telling me $30 for 2 months is expensive, and there’s games (even in Bnet shop) that has games that costs $30 and you can play them indefinitely (i.e. without having to pay for gametime). And the 2 month gametime kind of forces you to play for 2 months. I also do not like that the option of taking a break after a month of playing WoW taken away from me.

And yeah I think getting a sub then cancelling it would be better.

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I get that. I truly do. However, does your brain also not tell you that you would be paying twice as much for 6 months of game time if you go the purchase a token route?

Also worth noting, IF you have the gold, you can purchase a token directly in game for gold on the AH and apply that to game time as well.

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I thought if you bought a token off the auction house you could apply it for one month’s game time. That nothing had changed there. Are you guys saying you have to buy two months of game time when using tokens - surely I am misunderstanding, how would that even work.

In most areas, when you buy the token from the AH and use it, you get the option of applying game time (30-days) or converting to Battlenet balance. You don’t need to convert it to balance before getting game time. The areas that don’t give you two options only give you the option to apply 30-days game time.

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I know that.

Correct. Nothing changed there.

The current game time options and payment methods are summarized here

Description Cost (USD) CC PayPal Debit Bnet Bal WoW Token
:clock930: 1 Month Day reoccuring Subscription* $14.99 X X X
:clock11: 3 Month reoccuring Subscription* $41.97 X X X
:clock12: 6 Month Day reoccuring Subscription* $77.94 X X X
:flying_disc: WoW 30 day game time token (with gold) Gold
:credit_card: 60 day Game Time Card/Block $29.99 X X X X
:dollar: Battlenet Balance (your account)** Flex X X X X
:money_with_wings: Gifted Battlenet Balance Flex X X X

*If you don’t want your Subscription to automatically renew, wait for it to clear the payment (several days), then cancel the Sub on the account. You can do this every month if you like.
**Check the Bnet Balance article for Restrictions and use https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/25904

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okay thanks

Do you know if the prepaid credit cards still work the same way they did prior to tokens, i.e. 2014 I guess? In that if you used a prepaid credit card on a one month subscription they would not automatically recharge that card, i.e. there wasn’t an automatic renew with those.

This gets into a bit of semantics. By definition a Subscription auto renews. That is why I used a clock for those to indicated a timed renewal. You can’t use a pre-paid card for a re-occuring sub.

A game card/block is a discrete one time purchase - hence the card icon. They removed several of the game time “size” options. You can now only get game time in a 60 day block. You CAN use pre-paid cards for those.

Read carefully though as there are limits and there can also be ping charges and local taxes/fees so you may need more than the base game time card amount.

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Well it doesn’t say you can’t use them for subscriptions, only that they aren’t recurring payments which is exactly how it used to work. If you couldn’t use prepaid credit card or gift cards, I would have thought they would have said straight out you can’t, this semantics business makes me think it does work exactly how it used to.

Some people don’t have credit cards but everyone can buy the prepaid ones, so to eliminate that as an option to pay for game time seems like it would be excessively restrictive.

You are trying to set-up a World of Warcraft subscription. A pre-paid card won’t allow recurring payments. You can buy digital game time instead.

If you want to use a pre-paid card, than go ahead. We won’t stop you in the matter - but we’re only going off info that was given, nothing more.

A subscription is by definition a re-occurring payment. It does tell you that you can’t set up a subscription with a pre-paid card. You quoted the relevant line.

:clock11:Subscription - re-occuring payment set up on a schedule.
:credit_card:Game time card/block - single one-time purchase of a block of game time.

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