Xbox Live Game Pass Guide

Microsoft recently announced Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, a new subscription service that bundles Xbox Game Pass (for console and PC) and Xbox Live Gold for $14.99 per month, saving you $15 per month compared to paying for these services separately.

If you want to try it out, there’s a promotion happening that gives you a one-month trial of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $1. But before you redeem it, you should know that it’s possible to use the trial as a way to save a lot of money on Game Pass Ultimate for the next three years.

Activating the $1 Trial Can Save You Hundreds of Dollars or Use XBLReward.com to earn free Xbox Gift Card.

Microsoft allows Xbox players to order up to 36 months of prepaid Xbox Live Gold service. And for a limited time, activating the $1 trial will automatically convert future months of service to the more expensive Game Pass Ultimate, saving you hundreds of dollars. For some context on how much money you can save: it costs about $180 for three years of Xbox Live Gold. Add the $1 promotion, and you’re getting three years of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for about $181. Whereas if you paid the full $14.99 per month for Game Pass Ultimate, those three years would cost you almost $540.

It’s worth noting that this is a one-time offer. if you’ve already used the offer to get a month for $1 (sadly raises hand), you’ve used up your opportunity to convert Xbox Live Gold to Game Pass Ultimate. However, if you haven’t used it yet, here’s how to get the biggest bang for your buck.

• To get in on this complimentary conversion, you’ll first need to buy an Xbox Live Gold subscription (assuming you don’t have one already). Microsoft is likely to end the sale of Xbox Live Gold at some point, as it funnels players into buying Game Pass Ultimate. But for now, you can still buy digital codes for the service from Amazon in three, six, or twelve-month increments.

• The next step is to activate the Xbox Live Gold codes on your account, either through Microsoft’s website or directly through your Xbox One console. Microsoft states that the terms of this promotion are subject to change, so I’d do this sooner than later, as there’s no indication as to when it will stop converting Xbox Live Gold into Game Pass Ultimate.

• It’s now safe to take advantage of the $1 Game Pass Ultimate trial. Once you redeem the offer, you’ll see something similar to the image above when you click the “Services & subscriptions” tab on Microsoft’s site.

In my case, I wasn’t aware of the strategy above, so I paid more than I could have, but at least I now have a few months of Game Pass Ultimate. (I have commitment issues with subscription services that aren’t Spotify or Hulu, so I only redeemed three months' worth of Xbox Live Gold.) Here’s hoping that you can squeeze even more value out of this promotion.

Microsoft was at E3 2019 in a big way, and alongside the reveal of the next-gen Project Scarlett, the company launched Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. The new subscription bundles together Game Pass for PC and Xbox along with Xbox Live Gold, providing decent month-on-month savings.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s a promotion running that provides one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for £1/$1. While that’s attractive, you should know that there’s a way to save a lot more money on Game Pass Ultimate for up to three years using the promotion. Here’s how. You'll want to check out the details for XO19, the big Xbox event.

Xbox Live Gold is the standard online subscription for Xbox One players, allowing them to play online with friends while also providing access to a handful of free titles on a monthly basis – these titles are provided under the banner of Games with Gold. At £6.99/$9.99 a month, it was a pretty decent value, but the new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate blows it out of the water.

As revealed at E3 2019, the £10.99/$14.99 per month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate provides access to not only Xbox Live Gold, but Xbox Game Pass for Console (£7.99/$9.99 per month) and Xbox Game Pass for PC (£7.99/$9.99 per month) too, equating to savings of around £10/$15 per month if you went in on all three subscriptions separately.

To promote the launch of the service, Microsoft is currently running a promotion offering a month of Game Pass Ultimate for only £1/$1. While that’s a great deal, don’t take it just yet – there’s a way that you can use the promotion to save a lot of money on the subscription for up to three years.

In fact, by converting three years of an existing Xbox One Gold subscription to a Game Pass Ultimate subscription allows you to pay £1 for three years of the service instead of £395/$540. You might have to pay upfront now, but it’ll mean access to a vast and ever-growing library of games across PC and Xbox – even better if your game across both.

The best part? The deal has been officially endorsed by Microsoft, meaning those that have taken advantage so far - and those that are yet to - have no risk of violating Microsoft's terms of the agreement.