I posted several weeks ago in Give Ancestry for Christmas that there were bargains for Ancestry.com subscriptions through www.NothingButSoftware.com (but they include buying Family Tree Maker 16, 2008 or 2009 - your choice).
I bought Family Tree Maker 16 last month with a six-month Ancestry subscription for $32.49 plus $6.95 for shipping = $39.44, a savings of $62.26 for two three-month subscriptions (but only a savings of $38.26 for half of a 12-month retail subscription).
My previous subscription expired on 15 December - yesterday. I cancelled it the day before, effective on 15 December. I was working away in Ancestry.com yesterday at about 3:30 pm PST and all of a sudden the subscription went "Guest." Okay, I thought, now I'll activate the new trial subscription from within my newly installed and registered Family Tree Maker 16 software.
Activating a trial subscription is supposed to work from within FTM 16 by clicking on Internet>Start an Ancestry Trial Subscription. I did this, entered my credit card information and waited a few seconds - and got "You have already activated this trial subscription." Wait - no I haven't, I just bought it and if I had activated it I would have six months left on it.
Where's the Ancestry phone number? Not clearly shown on their web pages. Ah - 1-800-ANCESTRY. That makes sense. Oops, it's after 4 pm PST now, and they are open from 10 am to 6 pm Eastern time. I'll have to call tomorrow. So I went without Ancestry for a night - no big deal (well, actually I could have used it, but I found something else to do).
This morning, armed with my software box, the order and invoice forms, I called 1-800-ANCESTRY, navigated the voice mail directions successfully, and spoke to a delightful woman who helped me out. I told her my sad story, and gave her my current user ID. She asked me if there was a validation code in the software box (nope!), and then asked for the bar code number on the software box. I gave that to her (it's on the bottom of the box), and she said that I would be registered for six months sometime today. It took about two hours (and I was out of the house for one of them) to receive the confirmation email and to test it out - it works fine!
Of course, I need to do the same thing in six months...but then I'm being a frugal genealogist these days.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2024.
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Ancestry.com recognizes whether you have used the trial membership by the Credit Card you used. If you purchase a new software program and use a different credit card number it will go right threw. I experienced the same thing you did but tried a different credit card and it worked fine.
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