The kind of folks who read about savvy cost-saving methods on internet forums are always a vocal minority. The vast majority of users are always going to have signed up directly through the console, rather than faffing about with coupons and cheeky multi-step methods. Partially because it's far more convenient to just set up a monthly auto-pay, and partly because not everyone has the disposable income to pay for multiple years up front, even though it would save them money down the line.

And I'm saying this as someone who uses a combination of MS Rewards, Nectar Points, a staff discount on digital coupons, 'cashback' rebates, and money or gift cards from answering surveys to fund my Xbox habit.

My 3 years ended a few months ago. I didn’t renew at the time because TOTK was releasing and then the conversion deal ended so I decided to do without it. I haven’t missed it. It’s a great service and definitely good value but I have lots of games in my backlog and not much time to play nowadays anyway. I think buying one game I really want to play at a time has been more enjoyable for me personally.

My conversion ended ages ago. I'm paying full price now, and I'm not complaining, it's worth it, but if there's a cheaper way, I'd love to hear it.