Do you have to link a credit card number to create a Nook account? Can you use only gift cards?

[alliewinter]

I will be upgrading to a Nook Tablet in a few months and would like to pass down my Color to my daughter. I would like to set her up with her own account. She's 17 but doesn't have a checking account and I don't want her to have access to my library or account information. Can I set up an account for her and strictly use gift cards or just download free books?

Thank you in advance!

Allie

[keriflur · Accepted solution]

Yes, you need to have an active credit card on the account to be able to download books.  B&N uses that credit card to create a hash that allows your nook to unlock the DRM on the ebooks you download.

You can use a prepaid credit card, as long as it has a billing address associated to it (some don't).

You can also use gift cards as your primary means of payment (the credit card still nees to be on the account), but there are a few issues with how B&N handles gift cards that you should be aware of - you can only reload them three times, and B&N doesn't pull from the card with the lowest balance first (do a search on gift cards for more info).

For more info on your options, do a search of the forums.  This issue has come up quite a bit so there's lots of info out there on it.