Microsoft 365 - 12 Month Subscription Deal

[Montecfo]

For me, the value is in the cloud storage, the Office products are a nice extra. I share with my son and daughter as part of my family. We each can use up to 1TB of storage per account. I create a separate account for my photo's for storage. Getting 6TB of shared storage for ~$50. But not everyone needs or wants the cloud storage, but for those who do, this is dirt cheap. By comparison, Google Drive is $99.99/yr for 2TB.

I do not store data in the cloud so not an issue here.

 

[CincyDave]

Since I only use Word and Excel, I went with the one time payment version. Here’s a link. I’ve seen it go for a better price but don’t see any deals right now. The main thing is that there’s no subscription but it is a limited suite (no Outlook . . .). Just wanted to point out, that there is a no subscription option that may work for some.

https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Student-One-time-purchase-Download/dp/B09H7GPR1G?th=1

Same here. Subscription not worth it for me.

 

[JoeWras]

So some people (reviewers) are complaining that this method took over their account and reset it, or created a parallel account because Amazon has their hooks in it.

Others say no, you can extend your existing, as does OP.

So I'm confused... Any clarity on this?

Last year I got the HR Block + 15 month Office at Newegg. It was painless and a really good price for the combo.

 

[cathy63]

So some people (reviewers) are complaining that this method took over their account and reset it, or created a parallel account because Amazon has their hooks in it.

Others say no, you can extend your existing, as does OP.

So I'm confused... Any clarity on this?...

Short version:
I went through this yesterday and at first I thought I'd lost a few months of my old subscription, but it's fine today.

Long version:
My starting point: a 365 family subscription that was purchased directly from Microsoft several years ago and has been auto-renewing on Feb 25 every year since then.

Yesterday: I purchased the subscription + gift card from the link in post #1 of this thread. I received an email from Amazon telling me how to activate it. I followed the directions, making sure to enter the MS login and password for the account where I already have the active subscription.

The "Services & subscriptions" page in my MS account changed to show "Microsoft 365 Family / Purchased from Amazon" and there is no longer a place to see the expiration date in my MS account. At that time, my "Memberships & Subscriptions" page at Amazon still had an "Activate" button and showed a renewal date of November 27, 2023. I figured I'd lost 3 months of my previous subscription, which was disappointing, but I was still ahead overall since the Amazon price was half the MS price.

Today: My Amazon account no longer has an Activate button and it says "Renews on February 25, 2024 at $98.88/ Year plus tax", so sometime during the night everything got synched up. That's $1.11 cheaper than MS charges, and I assume the tax will be $0 since California doesn't have sales tax on services and MS doesn't collect tax when I buy directly from them. Also, I get an extra 4% back on the credit card when buying from Amazon.

 

[JoeWras]

Still all kinds of conflicts reported out there. I guess I'll give it a try and see what happens. I'm hoping all the conflicts reported are the immediate problems being out of sync.

 

[PatrickA5]

For those who use Microsoft Office subscription products.... Here's a great deal on getting 12 month subscription to Microsoft 365. $92.95 and includes a $50 Amazon gift card. I don't know about you, but Amazon gift card is almost like cash to me with all I buy on there So nets out to $42.95 for 12 month FAMILY subscription - up to 6 accounts each with access to the Office products and 1TB OneDrive cloud storage for each (6 TB of cloud based storage).

BTW, you can extend a current subscription, up to 5 years. I have mine now extended through 2026 Also, if you have a "Personal" account, you can upgrade to "Family", the remaining days on your existing subscription will automatically add to your "Family" subscription: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...personal-3fcc1efc-2722-427f-8efa-db94b9b0a36b


Anyways, here's the link to the current deal:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08NYWXPCS

Are there any discounts for buying 5 years?

I didn't see a way to add 5 years on my account. Did you do this by buying 5 individual years and letting the subscription days stack up?

 

[RetMD21]

For me, the value is in the cloud storage, the Office products are a nice extra. I share with my son and daughter as part of my family. We each can use up to 1TB of storage per account. I create a separate account for my photo's for storage. Getting 6TB of shared storage for ~$50. But not everyone needs or wants the cloud storage, but for those who do, this is dirt cheap. By comparison, Google Drive is $99.99/yr for 2TB.

Me too, but I couldn't get any of my family members interested in using the free storage. I wanted to downgrade to individual but MSFT somehow kept giving me free extensions of the family plan for a year! Anyway I finally converted. For anyone who is interested the best way to do it is to let your family plan expire and then resubscribe.

 

[JoeWras]

Short version:
I went through this yesterday and at first I thought I'd lost a few months of my old subscription, but it's fine today.

Long version:
My starting point: a 365 family subscription that was purchased directly from Microsoft several years ago and has been auto-renewing on Feb 25 every year since then.

Yesterday: I purchased the subscription + gift card from the link in post #1 of this thread. I received an email from Amazon telling me how to activate it. I followed the directions, making sure to enter the MS login and password for the account where I already have the active subscription.

The "Services & subscriptions" page in my MS account changed to show "Microsoft 365 Family / Purchased from Amazon" and there is no longer a place to see the expiration date in my MS account. At that time, my "Memberships & Subscriptions" page at Amazon still had an "Activate" button and showed a renewal date of November 27, 2023. I figured I'd lost 3 months of my previous subscription, which was disappointing, but I was still ahead overall since the Amazon price was half the MS price.

Today: My Amazon account no longer has an Activate button and it says "Renews on February 25, 2024 at $98.88/ Year plus tax", so sometime during the night everything got synched up. That's $1.11 cheaper than MS charges, and I assume the tax will be $0 since California doesn't have sales tax on services and MS doesn't collect tax when I buy directly from them. Also, I get an extra 4% back on the credit card when buying from Amazon.

Yeah, well I'm in that limbo right now. Let's see what happens overnight. I'm hoping all the complainers just shot out their complaints during this limbo time.

EDIT: actually, Amazon now has management of my subscription. It was extended properly into 2024. I guess I have to deal with Amazon now to cancel, or perhaps get it back.

Whatever... It was a lot cheaper at least.

 

[bobandsherry]

Are there any discounts for buying 5 years?



I didn't see a way to add 5 years on my account. Did you do this by buying 5 individual years and letting the subscription days stack up?

Exactly, just buy and stack the codes to extend for up to 5 years.

 

[USGrant1962]

I just purchased from Amazon. I can confirm that Amazon/Microsoft accounts don't sync right away, but 10 minutes later it showed the correct, extended expiration date.