Xbox Live Rewards

I see this, but not on the reward page but rather at the bottom of my earn page. I don’t often go to the reward page unless I know some good deal is going on.

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MS Gift cards are on sale this time.

4000 points for $5
8000 points for $10

https://account.microsoft.com/rewards/redeem/000400000317

The 8000 point one already says there’s limited quantities remaining.

Remember, only get it if there’s something you want to buy with the money now. The money will expire in 90 days (3 months), but the points don’t expire. So it’s best to keep the rewards in points unless there’s something on sale on Xbox Live right now you want to get.

I had no idea gift cards ever expired. I need to start reading fine print.

Hahahah. Has anyone fired up the Xbox Game Pass app today on your phone? For March it looks like they drastically reduced rewards for doing Game Pass quests. Like checking into the app daily and playing a game pass game daily went from 15 points to 5 points. And finishing a bunch of quests for the whole month went from a reward of 1000 to 100 points. So basically it’s not worth loading up anymore.

I’m actually kind of relieved. Firing up a game pass game every day, trying to get an achievement in one every week or so was starting to feel too regimented. Now I can still do those things, but on my own time table.

Sucks they dropped the rewards to 5 points, not worth doing now.

This guy says they’re back. I haven’t verified these claims.

True Achievements says they are increased, but not fully restored.

The 3 month Game Pass Ultimate subscription reward has been reduced, looks like 29,400 points is the baseline with possible further reduction based on your monthly level.

Oh nice. It’s a hot deal right now. 24500 points for me.

https://account.microsoft.com/rewards/redeem/000400000336

Note however, that if 12 months of Xbox Live Gold go on sale for 22500 about twice a year, that’s a better deal, because it translates to 4 months of Ultimate, and obviously 22500 is less than 24500, and you’re getting an extra month for it.

On the other hand, maybe they’ll stop having those sales on 12 months of Gold now?

I decided to get it anyway. Just in case that 22500 Gold 12 month deal doesn’t return.

I didn’t get the option to get a free month for turning on recurring billing. I guess Microsoft is onto me about that. Heh. Still, this puts me at 2 years out once again.

Americans have a new offer in the xbox app. Easy 2000 points.

Everyone should also have a Gears 5 card for 500 points. You have to earn an achievement, but there’s a new crafting one that takes < 5 minutes. Grab this at the same time:

I got an achievement in Gears 5 yesterday, but it hasn’t counted for my daily achievement +50 yet or the Gears Achievement for that Gears 5 task. Microsoft games always have problems registering. I should have gotten an achievement in a non-Microsoft game for my daily.

Not sure if someone here was still exclusively getting Xbox Game Pass for PC rewards, but I noticed that after a long absence from the rewards page, it has started showing up again recently as a reward you can get.

Hot deal on microsoft $ again.

Alright, let’s update and do some math on the best value for the money on getting game pass.

This is the conversion table, it should still be valid:

Currently they don’t offer 12 months of Gold anymore. They used to be the best way to get Ultimate Game Pass months. When they went on sale, they were 22,500, which translated to 4 months of Ultimate GP, which would normally be $60, so that’s 375ppd, but that’s too good to come back, and they haven’t offered the 12 months of Gold even as a normal reward for a while now, so let’s see what’s currently the best.

I’ll calculate points per dollar (ppd) based on the equivalent retail money you would spend on UGP.

Gold 3 months (2 months UGP) - 20,000 points - 667 ppd
Game Pass PC 3 months (2 months UGP?) - 20,400 points - 680 ppd
Game Pass Ultimate 3 months - 35,000 points - 778 ppd

So right now it’s still the best value to get Xbox Live Gold through the points in order to increase your UGP time. Note Game Pass for PC - 3 months is not on the conversion chart, since it didn’t used to exist when Microsoft did the conversions initially. I’m assuming you will 2 months of UGP, since one month for PC used to be the same as one month for Xbox (20 days).

Now, according to this thread, the last time UGP went on sale back in March, it was on sale for:

Hot Deal 3 Months Ultimate Game Pass - 24,500 points - 544ppd.

So that’s actually the best deal that we know of right now, and worth waiting for. But if you need some UGP time before then, 3 months of Gold is currently the cheapest conversion.

Edit: I should also add that spending points on Ultimate Game Pass is a much better value all around than spending points on Microsoft/Xbox Gift Cards. Even the best Gift card values when they are on hot deal sales are 800ppd. And they’re normally 920ppd if you buy a lot of them.

I really wish they would have a sale on MS gift cards before the Series X pre-orders go live. I’ve been checking everyday for months.

Well, the last time I bought a hot deal MS gift card was June 19th, so if I hadn’t spent them, those dollars would be about to expire soon. So maybe in another few weeks?

I have 500,000 points I can redeem January 1, but they’ve had redemption discounts in mid-January or February the last two years.

We’ve gone so long without a sale I’m starting to contemplate maybe buying Gold time using Rewards at regular price. My Ultimate Game Pass expiration of April 2022 seems irrationally close for some reason now that I’m getting a Series X.

Ha, I always keep mine topped off at the 3 year max using rewards points.