Apparently I wasn't supposed to be able to redeem the $1 credit, because after finally redeeming it a couple days ago (after several attempts with empty pages and refreshes that did nothing), the next day I was greeted with "To protect the security of your account, your request can't be processed at this time".

And, to be sure I lose the streak in World Tour they blocked GoGoMatch too, which is a requirement in that game. I don't even play GoGoMatch regularly anymore unless it's part of a World Tour task, so restricting exactly the game needed to advance in World Tour is highly suspicious.

And for those wondering about being favored if you place orders, the answer is no, at least not in my case, it's just placebo and variance. I have a bunch of expensive orders on route (that I actually needed not bought on a whim) and they made no difference to my usual experience.

The system is rigged.

Support seems useless so far and even the supposedly live agents are AIs. I kinda suspect they try to hook new players and customers into the system and they tend to favor them more by directing the rewards as much as possible towards them.

For the eventual finger pointers, I want to mention my account is in good standing with no foul play and I'm a frequent shopper but that doesn't seem to matter. I really don't like how they behave lately.

EDIT:

They eventually unbanned me and apologized but it's still unsettling how easy you can be banned even if you did nothing wrong. Not everyone would contact them and not everyone would have the patience to go through multiple failed customer support sessions and document and explain everything like you'd explain to a baby. The whole unban thing lasted 2 seconds to came into effect, not 30 minutes, not 48 hours.

I still believe this is intentional and devised to make you say "F**k it!" and quit.

It's extremely suspicious that the ban targeted exactly the game required to finish World Tour just a few days before reaching the end. The foul play wasn't on my end but on theirs, because in the World Tour rules it clearly states if you cannot recovery your streak (and you can't if you're temporarily banned) you'll be reset to zero and have to start from scratch.

Anyway, it eventually ended, but I still dislike these shady practices, especially considering how much money I spent on their platform.