(ran out of room) You have 30 days from buying the box, but could not get it due to needing a credit card applied to your account. If you never used it, will that go toward a gold account?

This is a problem my friend had. Me and a buddy got him the game and I gave him one of my LT buddy codes. However, he could not get his thirty days due to the account wanted him to apply his card, and he didn't want to be charged with low funds in his account. How will that work for the new system?

If you submit a ticket to billing support, they can probably enable the 30 days. They've done it for some other people.