[i1856511]

How did you provide payment information for iCloud for an account that wasn't your own? Or is your CC the one on file for your parents' account? I want to do the same thing for my own parents, but they have their own CC on file and AFAIK there's no way to supply a different one for a one-off purchase.

[toomuchtodo]

Family controls let you pay for someone else's storage (if they're on your family account). Buying then an iTunes gift card works as well.

I prepay my $36/year in iCloud storage for all of our synced family photos by purchasing a gift card each year and then applying it to my iTunes account (instead of dinging my CC $3/month, which is just annoying).

[i1856511]

Thank you. That's a good idea, and I will look into this. With this method, do you get an alert or email when your period is about to expire?

[toomuchtodo]

Apple sends me an email invoice every month for the storage. If I still have a credit, it says "stored credit" was applied. I put an annual reminder in Google Calendar to re-up the account balance with a gift card. If I forget, I get the American Express push notification that Apple charged my card.