Why Was My Gift Card Payment Declined?

• If this is your first payment with the physical card, make sure to use your PIN code: Get the PIN code for my Swile card
• Check that contactless payment is enabled: How do I enable or disable contactless payment?
• If you want to pay online, make sure that online payment is enabled: How do I enable or disable online payments with my Swile card?
• Your card is still active and hasn’t expired: My card is about to expire, how do I get a new one?
• Your balance is sufficient to pay for your purchase. 💡 Please note, it’s not possible to activate CB relay to pay with gift or culture vouchers.

There are several types of gift vouchers (adult, child, culture, birth, etc). These can’t all be used in the same way. To find out how to spend them, check our page: How do I use my Swile gift vouchers?

You can’t spend your gift vouchers in shops or on websites that sell food products* because the regulations don’t allow the use of gift or culture vouchers to buy food.

However, you can buy gift cards from our shop, which can then be used in those stores, except for food sections. To find out more, see our article: How do I buy a gift card from the Swile shop?
*Exception for delicatessens, wine merchants and chocolatiers, where you can use your Adult gift vouchers.

On your Swile account, in the Where to spend section, you can see all the places where you can use your gift vouchers. 

We recommend trying to make a payment at the shop in question. As soon as a first payment is made, the shop is automatically added to our list (if it’s eligible). 

If a payment fails, please send us an abandoned transaction ticket so we can check if the information we have is correct.

If the shop is listed on the map and your payment didn’t go through, first check that you’ve followed the spending rules for your type of gift voucher (Back to school, Children’s Christmas, etc). See our page: How do I use my Swile gift vouchers?

💡 Please note, you must have actually tried to pay with your Swile card. If you haven’t attempted a payment, unfortunately we won’t be able to help you.

To report a problem:

• Go to your Swile account and check your transaction history.
• On the failed transaction, you can see the reason for the payment failure. If the shop is shown as ineligible but should be eligible, you can click on "Make eligible – Refund".
• If you ended up paying for your item another way, please send us proof of this purchase.

See our dedicated page: Can I pay with my Swile gift vouchers online?