Microsoft just changed the price of Game Pass fairly substantially and as far as I can tell, with no warning. Prices jumped as much as 50%, with Ultimate going to $30/month, which feels pretty darned steep to me.
But that’s not all they’ve done. A lot of us frugal types tend to stack-up game pass subscriptions via Microsoft Rewards points, particularly during sales. Microsoft seems to be making that harder. You can no longer spend Rewards points directly on Game Pass. Instead you have to trade in points for Gift Cards and then spend that money on Game Pass. Why does this matter? Because as far as I can tell (someone please correct me if I’m wrong) you can’t extend your membership using cash, unless of course it has expired or is coming due.
From a pop-up on https://rewards.bing.com/
[Important update] Changes to Rewards Catalog
Starting October 1st, you will no longer be able to directly redeem your Rewards points for Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. To continue enjoying Xbox Game Pass using your Rewards points, you will need to first redeem your Rewards points for an Xbox gift card and then redeem your Xbox gift card for your desired Game Pass subscription, as follows:
Step 1: Visit the Microsoft Rewards catalog.
Step 2: Redeem your Rewards points for an Xbox gift card[TD1] in a denomination that is sufficient to cover the cost of your desired Game Pass subscription. If you do not have enough Rewards points for the desired Xbox gift card denomination, you may use an alternative payment method to cover the rest.
Step 3: Use your Microsoft Account balance from your redeemed Xbox gift card to purchase your desired Game Pass subscription. If your Microsoft Account balance is insufficient to cover your desired Game Pass subscription, you may use an alternative payment method to cover the rest.
When your Game Pass subscription expires, you can buy another Game Pass subscription by either (i) repeating Steps 1-3, above; or (ii) using an alternative payment method to purchase a Game Pass subscription.
As of right now you can stil purchase Game Pass gift cards from retailers like Amazon, so you can spend rewards points on an Amazon gift card, use that money to buy a Game Pass gift card, and then apply that to your Game Pass account, but we’ll see how long that lasts.
Or maybe this is temporary and once the pricing settles they’ll bring back direct redemption for Game Pass.
Another big change I don’t see talked about is that Microsoft is now capping Rewards Points at $100/year. Or at least that’s how I’m reading this:
Ultimate subscribers can now earn up to $100 per year (100k points globally) in the Store just by playing games.
I’ve never stopped to do the math, so before I get out my pitchfork and torch I should do that. I feel like I earn more than $100 worth of points per year, though. But it could be that $100 is the mathematical cap if you do all the quests they offer.
In any case it looks like the golden age of Xbox Game Pass is coming to an end. And PSA: You can still buy 3-Month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gift card for $60 on Amazon so if you want to stock up, now is the time to do so.
Re: gift cards. Some data scientist in Redmond probably built a model that shows execs how much money they make on gift cards where they got the $100 bucks in on the purchase, but then only used $80 of it before they stuck it in a drawer and forgot about it. Or even better, never even used $1 of it. That’s free money for the corp. So let’s force more gift card purchases and pump up the bottom line. And that data scientist got an atta boy and a little more job security during the next round of reorg downsizing.
Maybe I’ve been doing this stuff too long… does my cynicism show? 😀
Your cynicism is showing BUT that also makes perfect sense! Basically it’s the water company sneaking in and putting a pinhole in your incoming water line so you don’t get to use some of the water you pay for.
Can you tell we had a leaking water line and our water bill was going through the roof until we figured it out? 🙂
That’s always the scam with gift cards, isn’t it? And not just with Game Pass. Most cards are careful to cost more than the thing they are typically used for purchasing, so you use a gift card, then are unsure how much is left on it, and then you forget about it, and it’s free money for the issuer — even if you did buy it on sale.
That was the trick in the old days, too — the company store used its own money system, so once you exchanged actual cash for their store credit, you were trapped into buying from that store or saying goodbye to your money. And they could charge what they like at that point.
I’ve never been much of a gift card person but yeah, that makes perfect sense and I bet I have thrown out a lot of expired gift cards over the years. Specially small denomination ones. $5 Star Bucks card or something. I don’t generally go to Star Bucks and for $5 I’m not going to make a special trip.