Thanks for the help, everyone. Here's what happened.

On the gift card it says that you must have an iTunes account in order to redeem the card. When my son tried to open an account, he found out that a credit card was required. He was pretty much the one navigating the website as I stood by watching, and between the two of us, we couldn't find a place to redeem the card without opening an account. So out of sheer frustration, I put in my credit card information, even though I knew we had to be overlooking something.

We did try several ways to redeem the card before finally giving up. Maybe Apple could make the instructions for gift card redemption a little easier to find. I think the problem might have been that we didn't start at the right place. When he buys another gift card, he's going to try again to open his own account using the like provided by S W.

I should have written the letter before I opened the account, but my son had already been waiting a week, and I understood that his patience was wearing thin. I knew someone here would have an answer for us long before we heard from Apple.

Hey, I never said I was any good at this internet stuff, and my son's impatience (inherited from me) sometimes causes him to not fully investigate. So don't blame me! I'm just a soul whose intentions are good... hahaha!