Originally Posted by Ratsy

Has anyone managed to successfully purchase a gift card/egift card from the Air Canada Buyatab site? If so, please tell me how you did it!

I've tried 17 (17!) different ways in the past 5 days and have been unsuccessful every time. I know 2 others who have been continually trying all week, also with no success.

I've tried various credit cards (Aeroplan black Visa, Mastercard Gold, no-fee Mastercard), various amounts ($25 - $1000), various browsers (FF, Chrome, private, regular) and nothing has worked. I've contacted both Visa & Mastercard to confirm they are not blocking the sale (they are not) so the issue is definitely with Buyatab.

The transaction always says completed, but within an hour I receive an email saying

Unable to Complete your Air Canada Online Gift-Card Order #xxxxxx. This e-mail is to notify you that we were unable to authenticate and complete your recent online Gift Card order ( # xxxxxx ). As such, your order has been cancelled.
A temporary hold was placed on your payment method. This is not a charge and will disappear from your card in 2-3 business days.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Prior to attempting another purchase, please contact our Air Canada Gift Card Support.
Air Canada Gift Card Support Contact Information
Toll Free and SMS in North America at 1-855-281-1761.
Please note that this process is in place to ensure the protection and security of all of our customers and their credit card information.
Thank you for your cooperation.
I've called the Customer Support number, and the person I spoke to really didn't care. She kept repeating "there's nothing we can do, if it doesn't go through it doesn't go through, it must be a problem with your card." I told her my bank is approving the transactions (I have seen the pending charges on my account) but Buyatab is later cancelling them. She basically shrugged over the phone and said there's nothing she can do, it's all up to the system.

So, does anyone know the "trick" to buying a gift card online?

(long-time lurker, hardly ever post but am really stumped on this one... )