It seems that a select few Google Play patrons have noticed that the Google Play store is now allowing them to partially pay for items with their remaining store credit. Google has not officially announced the change yet and it doesn’t seem to be working very widely at the moment, but a gradual back-end roll out could be under way.

On working devices, the partial payment option is in effect across apps, books, music, movies and the news-stand, and can also be put towards in-app purchases. Previously, Google Play did not allowed customers to part pay for an app or media item using their remaining store credit. The balance had to cover the full cost, which could be pretty annoying if you wanted to try and use up the last of your credit on a low cost purchase.

If you would like to see the partial payment system in action, you should check out the video at this link (embedding has been disabled).

It’s odd that it has taken Google so long to begin rolling out this seemingly obvious feature, but at least it now appears to be on the way. I haven’t been able to test this out myself here in the UK, but hopefully a wider rollout is right around the corner.