turn off auto renewal

Make sure you have auto-renew turned off. Go to settings > account > subscriptions > turn off auto-renew.

When you turn off the auto renewal on a gold subscription, you are only turning it off on the gold you have at that time. If you go back a few days later or a month later and purchase a new gold subscription (because you are controlling when you make that
purchase) then the auto renewal turns back on. You will then have to have that auto renewal turned off again. The auto renewal is not turned off forever, it's only turned off for the current gold subscription that you have. Hope that explains it a bit more.

Just keep in mind that any time you switch off auto-renewal, you get a notification email. And if it turns back on, you get a notification email. If you turn it off, make note of whether or not you got the email. If you didn't, then something didn't process
right, and you should assume your auto-renewal is still on. If you turn off your auto-renewal, get the email notifying you it's off, then you apply a prepaid Gold membership card before your Gold expires, it will turn your auto-renewal back on. They tell
you this when you turn off your auto-renewal.

Oh! Yes you can turn off auto renewal. Go to my account on xbox.com > manage subscriptions then turn off auto renewal. Hope that helps!

If you're having trouble turning auto-renew off on the website, you will have to call support to have them turn it off.

btw, the pop up on the console asking if you want to renew your membership doesn't actually turn off auto-renewal for some reason.