WARNING: Google Cloud did *NOT* credit my account $300 - after 1 day of operation, I have been bill $8.99

[Kevin Kirkpatrick]

I'm not sure what the criteria is for receiving the $300 credit.  Since there was nothing in the setup instructions about it, I assumed it was automatic for new Google Cloud instances.  However, after day 1 of contributing (an impressive ~20k games, I'll add) under the "Billing" link, my account shows:

Cost before credit: 8.99

Credit: 0.00

Cost after credit: 8.99

If anyone has ideas of how I might have missed out on the credit (or ways I might still be able to receive it), please let me know.  Until then, I'll be shutting down my $270/month instance.

For anyone else who just followed the Google Cloud instructions in a "set it and forget it" mode, I encourage you to circle back and double-check that the $300 credit was, indeed, applied to your account.  Not checking could prove to be a costly mistake!

[LuckyDay]

That is strange that you didn't receive the $300 credit. Had you signed up to any of the google cloud platform services in the past? The free trial is only valid for 12 months, and only for people who have never utilised google cloud services before.

When you do create a free trial account, it will display your balance in a header at the top of the screen (which should show $300 USD or whatever your currency converts that to) so your account balance is always very visible. You will also have a big UPGRADE button at the top right (don't click that unless you want to upgrade to a paid account.)

[LuckyDay]

Also, just to double-check, when you click on the Billing section, and click on overview, it should display if you have credits remaining. it is normal in the transactions section for their to be deductions made, and then Google periodically adds in credit to reset the overall balance to 0. I haven't seen any actual transactions go through yet.

I am attaching a screenshot to show you how the credits are displayed.

On Friday, October 5, 2018 at 11:31:28 PM UTC+10, Kevin Kirkpatrick wrote:

[David Rodríguez Sánchez]

Did you select on the Try Free Trial?
It should automatically add 300$ and state the number of days left to be spent

[Kevin Kirkpatrick]

Aha - that was it.  I had previously used their data storage service when I needed a large backup, and it appears this free credit is for first-time use of *any* service.  

A little frustrating, as if I'd known that using the disk space a year ago would preclude me from receiving a $300 credit today, I would've chosen an alternate approach.

To sum up: if you're using a Google account which has used any other Google service in the past, double-check that the $300 credit is delivered before you startup the lc0-training instance.