XBox Ultimate GamePass Billing versus Prepaid Gold Membership

Nick Sheist · May 12, 2020

I wanted to try the $1/month offer for Ultimate Gamepass but, as a prepaid Xbox Gold subscriber, I had some questions about how the billing works and I wasn't seeing transparency.

Q: If I were to sign up for Ultimate GamePass for the promotional rate and cancel before the month is over, what happens to my prepaid Gold membership?

A: After much time chatting with Microsoft support, I was informed that canceling the Ultimate GamePass during the promotional period would also terminate my prepaid Xbox Gold prepaid membership.

This was my primary concern when looking at the promotional offer in the Xbox Marketplace and the reason I reached out to the support staff before signing up for Ultimate GamePass. So the next question was:

Q: So, if canceling the Ultimate Gamepass offer during the promotional period also terminates my Xbox Gold membership, what is the case when I prepaid my Gold Membership for the year?

A: Once canceled, my prepaid Gold Membership can be reinstated through the customer support portal and the remainder of the balance will be applied at the prepaid rate.

So, I requested a copy of my correspondence for reference and had a follow-up question:

Q: If I decided to keep Ultimate GamePass after the promotional period was over, how would the billing be applied to my prepaid Gold Membership?

A: The billing would convert to the rate of $14.99/mo, charged against the balance of my Gold Membership until that prepaid amount had been used. Once that balance was used, the monthly billing would resume at the price
of Ultimate GamePass.

I felt there was a complete lack of transparency regarding this matter. It took quite a lot of back and forth with the support staff to get straight answers to these questions. The inclusion of Ultimate GamePass as a higher subscription
plan rather than a separate add-on made this all more complicated than it needs to be. I will still have to follow up with the support staff at some point to resolve my concerns if I wish to proceed with the promotional offer for GamePass.

:)

Tezzarrific

basically if you had say 12 months of gold on your account and you upgraded to ultimate with the 1 dollar offer, your gold would be converted to ultimate and the conversion would give you 4 months of ultimate plus a month for the dollar promo.

this will then cancel your current gold as it has been converted, you can then turn off auto renew and wait for it to expire 5 months down the line and just purchase normal gold again. or keep renewing from that 5 month mark by paying monthly or yearly.

if you cancel then you lose everything as you have turned in your gold for ultimate pass.

if this make any sense at all

MikeGain42

Did a bit more digging in the FAQs, no issues at all for existing Game Pass members (direct quote from FAQ):

If you're already an Xbox Live Gold or Xbox Game Pass member, any days remaining in your membership(s) will be converted to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at a conversion ratio when you redeem the 24-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
membership and added to your Ultimate membership up to a maximum of 36 months. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate memberships are limited to 36 months.

If you’re already an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate member, wait until your existing membership has a prepaid balance that is less than 12 months before redeeming the 24-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership through Xbox All
Access. You will be unable to redeem with more than 12 prepaid months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

To check your prepaid balance, go to https://account.microsoft.com/services. Note, once converted to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Xbox Live
Gold and other Game Pass memberships cannot be unconverted. Learn more at www.xbox.com/gamepass.

ngocphi

If you are trying ti get gamepass ultimate you need to be in a supported region ad a billing method must be supported

You can only use prepaid gold cards that's ir

Panno92

No you don't need to cancel the subscription, you will simply need to wait the natural expiration.

From what you have written I think that you have a Gamepass Ultimate (which already includes all Gold benefits), therefore your only way to have only an active gold is this:

- cancel the recurring billing for Gamepass Ultimate (already done)

- wait until the natural expiration of Gamepass Ultimate

- Buy a Gold Membership Card or activate the gold subscription on the xbox store

Unfortunately there is no way to make a direct downgrade from Gamepass Ultimate to Gold

I hope this could help you

ArminatorX

You can't convert it to Game Pass directly.

If you however have an active Game Pass ULTIMATE subscription (that combines Gold and Game Pass), the Gold membership card will add time to your Ultimate Membership.

However, since ULTIMATE combines two subscriptions, you won't get the full 3 months from the "Gold only" membership card.

According to the
Game Pass ULTIMATE FAQ page you will get 50 days of Game Pass ULTIMATE added to your subscription with a 3 month Gold prepaid card.

XBox Ultimate GamePass Billing versus Prepaid Gold Membership