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.
1 comment:
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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