Android Holiday Gift problem

Is there a simple way to query when a user originally purchased an app?

I want to give my app users a holiday gift, on iOS I did this by giving them an in-app purchase for free. That was actually pretty straight forward because Apple lets you have free in-app purchases. By doing it as an in-app purchase it is a simple matter to restore the entitlement in the future.

Android, on the other hand doesn’t let you do free in-app purchases. I’m trying to figure out what to do about that. Giving someone an entitlement is not the problem, allowing them to restore the entitlement if they get a new phone is the problem.

The only hope I can see is that the Android version is going to be launched with the holiday gift. Thus, anyone who downloaded the app before x-day I can reasonably assume gets the entitlement.

It’s also relevant that the item I’m using as a gift is a new item that will later be used as an in-app purchase. Effectively, I am giving away an in-app purchase for a limited time. This is why I want to be able to tell who is entitled and who isn’t.

I was able to contact Google Play and they confirmed that there is no way that this can work with their system. However, further research suggests it might work on the Amazon store. Perhaps I will release on Amazon instead since Corona supports both.

Anyone have experience good or bad with the Amazon store? How does it compare to GP?

I was able to contact Google Play and they confirmed that there is no way that this can work with their system. However, further research suggests it might work on the Amazon store. Perhaps I will release on Amazon instead since Corona supports both.

Anyone have experience good or bad with the Amazon store? How does it compare to GP?