After speaking to two customer support specialist(one that didn't speak good english), I finally decided to call back and ask to speak directly to a supervisor. Well guess what, It worked! I explained that I usually have my Xbox Live Gold membership renewed annually, but after not having the funds this year to renew, my acct. was suspended. After going out and buying the 49.99 Gold card from retail, coming home, opening it up, and getting nowhere because the dashboard kept kicking me out, I decided to call Xbox Live. I asked the supervisor why my $$ wasn't any good in the form of a card?And why a Xbox Live member for over 5 years can't decide to renew his acct. via a card vs auto renewal?Well after about 3-5 minutes of ranting with him, he decided to give me a year of Live and I still have the 12 month card. Maybe Microsoft needs to train their customer service reps better or put warning labels on the retail copies of the 12month Gold Card mentioning that if you have a auto renewal membership you are limited to renewal by that method. Or just give auto renewal cust. a year free after 3 harrassing phone calls. At least they did fix it, and now I'm much happier.