PlayStation Plus users offered free subscription upgrades, but listen up before claiming

PlayStation Plus appears to be rolling out a new offer, inviting certain users nearing the end of their yearly subscription to upgrade to the next tier for free.

The offer does appear to be targeted, but you can see if you’re eligible by navigating to the PlayStation Plus hub where you can view your subscription details.

If you have less than a month left until your auto-renewal date, you may be invited to enjoy the last month of your current subscription on a higher tier at no additional cost.

That would see Essential users upgraded to Extra and Extra users upgraded to Premium.

The offer was shared on Reddit by user accelaratorforlife, who said, “I’m not seeing anyone talk about this.”

Others quickly replied though sharing that they’d also received the offer.

“I received this offer when I had just over a month of my PlayStation Plus Extra subscription left,” replied Soul-Assassin79.

“I got it too in Italy,” added AllinoMosechino.

The free offer is a great way to sample PlayStation Plus’ higher tiers at no additional cost to see if they’re for you.

The Premium tier, for example, includes the additional Classics Catalogue, Game Trials, and cloud streaming.

Personally, I tried the tier and decided that Extra suited me just fine, but it cost me money to reach that conclusion and here, with this offer, you need not part with a penny or dime.

Even so, this free offer should come accompanied by a major warning because its timing is suspicious, to say the least.

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Don’t let auto-renew turn your PS Plus free trial into an expensive subscription bill

The vast majority of us have our PlayStation Plus subscriptions set to auto-renew.

If you accept this offer and, say, upgrade to Premium for free for the last month of your subscription, by the time your auto-renewal comes around, it’ll renew at your new current level, Premium.

If you only want the upgrade for the duration of the free month, after accepting, you need to navigate to your subscription details and turn off auto-renew to avoid the risk of spending more money than you’d like to further down the line.

This sly effort to perhaps lure people into accidentally upgrading for an entire year hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“They’re trying to upsell you so you’re on the Premium plan before your renewal date,” noted oakleez.

“Looks like they want to up you for free for 20 days, then charge full price if you pay yearly,” added coulombeqc.

User Shane_2018 had the right idea: “Take the freebie and go straight to account, subscriptions, and unsubscribe! Enjoy a free month of Premium.”

That’s the right approach. If you’re yet to try Premium, it’s perhaps worth taking advantage of the offer.

You could easily make your way through a couple of classic game titles within the space of a month.

Just be savvy about it though and if you don’t intend to stay on the Premium tier long term, make sure you amend your subscription before your auto-renewal locks you into making a pricier-than-planned purchase.