This is something that should be so easy as to be able to do it in my sleep but I am going around in circles. Please do not mention the irony of wanting to sign up with a software company that cannot make a web site that is easy to use.
My 13-year-old son wants an Xbox Live Gold account. Child accounts need to be registered under a parent account. I have the accounts all set up. So then I logged into my son’s (free) account to upgrade it to gold. But then when I click the upgrade button it says it’s not allowed, and prompts me to login to the adult account. But I don’t want to upgrade the adult account, I want to upgrade the child account. The page with parental control settings says, “On Xbox.com, purchasing is restricted to adult accounts only.”
I am guessing that maybe I have to do the upgrade from the console itself. Is that the only way?
When you have authorised the transaction from the linked adult account, the child account will be upgraded.
Been there, done that. Had to smile last weekend when I powered on my sons XBOX360 to play with something (a very rare occasion). I got prompted for the latest update, with a change in conditions that required authorisation from the adult account. My son is nearly 20 - MS Live know his age, but obviously don’t automatically do that sort of update to the accounts. To sign in as an adult took a hotmail password I have not used for years, I was honestly unsure if it still worked. Since my son leaves for uni shortly (sans XBox) I guess I can deactivate all that stuff soon.
Finally got back to this and it works just like you described. It looked to me like I was signing into my own account but in reality it presented exactly the same page as a login page but was using it just to verify parental consent. After I entered my login information, my son’s account was still logged in.