Xbox Sparks Confusion With $5 Gift Cards For 'Participating In The Black Ops 7 Campaign'

Every now and again, Microsoft likes to give away free Gift Cards to various Xbox users — usually as a result of a major sale on the Xbox Store — but this is one of the most confusing examples yet.

Earlier this week, a bunch of Call of Duty fans began sharing that they'd received a free $5 Xbox Gift Card via their Xbox messages for "participating in the Black Ops 7 campaign". You can have a look at this in the image below:

Many people naturally thought this meant the actual, in-game campaign of Black Ops 7, but when others started to reveal they'd beaten BO7's campaign and received nothing, people started pointing to other reasons why this might have happened - and it seems that it's related to a promo regarding the Vault Edition from late last year.

At the time, Microsoft was offering a $5 Xbox Gift Card along with a Dual 2XP Bonus as an incentive for picking up the Vault Edition Upgrade, which appears to be why players are suddenly receiving them in their messages now. A lot of buyers clearly weren't aware they were supposed to get these extra gifts, but they were part of the promo.

So, if you're in this boat and you received a free $5 Xbox Gift Card for "participating in the Black Ops 7 campaign" earlier this week, it doesn't seem to be anything to do with the campaign itself — it's just poor wording on Xbox's part.

Then again, maybe we're wrong and you've got another explanation? Tell us if you've received a gift card in the comments, as we've spotted a handful of people who have suggested they never bought the Vault Edition specifically.

Did anything show up in your Xbox messages? Let us know in the comments section below.