Thanks Nyll, unfortunately that didn't work either.
When placing a L$2000 buy order (well within the stated trading limits) I was getting this:
"The cost will be charged from your account's US$ balance, which we've listed below"
Of course there is no US$ balance for that alt, but I continued anyway.
The next page gave me this error message:
"We are unable to complete your request.
• You can't buy L${$display_quantity}, your current USD balance is ${$display_buy_balance_sll}. Please click here if you wish to increase your USD balance.
When I clicked the link to increase my USD balance it told me I had to at least increase it by 25 USD which is something I simply don't need right now, so I didn't continue from there.
I remember when I first joined SL about 4 years ago it only took me a few minutes to put payment info on file, but this is just ridiculous. Making it so difficult for people to spend a few bucks first without going premium doesn't make sense to me at all ;-)
Well, I guess then I'll just leave that alt as is, I simply don't need more than one premium account right now!