MS Rewards Gamepass update starting Oct 2025

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[Important update] Changes to Rewards Catalog

Starting October 1st, you will no longer be able to directly redeem your Rewards points for Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. To continue enjoying Xbox Game Pass using your Rewards points, you will need to first redeem your Rewards points for an Xbox gift card and then redeem your Xbox gift card for your desired Game Pass subscription, as follows:
Step 1: Visit the Microsoft Rewards catalog.
Step 2: Redeem your Rewards points for an Xbox gift card[TD1] in a denomination that is sufficient to cover the cost of your desired Game Pass subscription. If you do not have enough Rewards points for the desired Xbox gift card denomination, you may use an alternative payment method to cover the rest.
Step 3: Use your Microsoft Account balance from your redeemed Xbox gift card to purchase your desired Game Pass subscription. If your Microsoft Account balance is insufficient to cover your desired Game Pass subscription, you may use an alternative payment method to cover the rest.
When your Game Pass subscription expires, you can buy another Game Pass subscription by either (i) repeating Steps 1-3, above; or (ii) using an alternative payment method to purchase a Game Pass subscription.

WHAT THE PHIL?
 
Show Me The Money GIF
 
Punished Miku said:
I always spend it on gift cards already.
Click to expand...
The thing is, if you use reward points to directly buy a Gamepass subscription, you are paying more than if you buy it through a third-party online store and do the conversion....

Like you, I also use reward points for gift cards and with them buy games, reduce prices, or buy controllers or other peripherals from the store. And since you can choose the specific amount of points to use and convert into money, everything is ideal.
 
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Well seeing as the recession is getting harder people will be going out less but might have just enough to justify a gamepass sub to play some games with the boy's.
 
I have not touched the points in forever. I probly have enough to buy a ROG Ally Xbox by now.
Or at least a new controller. Will they ever release a redesign of the Elite? I want Microsoft to use whatever rumble is in the Dual Sense.
 
ok, lets spend some points...

edit: But in October they will do a gift card sales.
 
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dorkimoe said:
lol wtf. Why on earth? Adding another step for fun I guess
Click to expand...

I guess there must be some phd marketing study that adding this step, you will see a few dollars leftover in your gift card balances, makes you willingly to topup with cash to not let it go to waste.

In the past, with just reward points to GP subs, nobody thinks of their Xbox wallet
 
dorkimoe said:
lol wtf. Why on earth? Adding another step for fun I guess
Click to expand...

Because they charge more points for Xbox gift cards than they do Game Pass subscriptions.

$12 Xbox Gift Card - 11400 <-- price of PC Game Pass
$20 Xbox Gift Card - 19000 <-- price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Point costs for subs....

PC Game Pass - 7750
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate - 12000
 
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Topher said:
Because they charge more points for Xbox gift cards than they do Game Pass subscriptions.

$12 Xbox Gift Card - 11400 <-- price of PC Game Pass
$20 Xbox Gift Card - 19000 <-- price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Point costs for subs....

PC Game Pass - 7750
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate - 12000
Click to expand...


And this change came out of the blue, no pre-empt this time, all our points belongs Mr Phil now.
 
Darsxx82 said:
The thing is, if you use reward points to directly buy a Gamepass subscription, you are paying more than if you buy it through a third-party online store and do the conversion....

Like you, I also use reward points for gift cards and with them buy games, reduce prices, or buy controllers or other peripherals from the store. And since you can choose the specific amount of points to use and convert into money, everything is ideal.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but if I use points directly then I have zero cash out of pocket. For me, that has been the entire point of MS rewards.
 
Topher said:
Because they charge more points for Xbox gift cards than they do Game Pass subscriptions.

$12 Xbox Gift Card - 11400 <-- price of PC Game Pass
$20 Xbox Gift Card - 19000 <-- price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Point costs for subs....

PC Game Pass - 7750
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate - 12000
Click to expand...

GPU wasn't 12K anymore, they already increased it to 17K earlier this year.
 
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Topher said:
Oh, I see it now. That's weird. Why have there if it can't be used?
Click to expand...

I don't think they've ever officially announced it, that 17K tile just started showing up for people around Jan or Feb at the start of this year.

Like this thing, they've formally announced it, maybe the 17K thing was going to happen but didn't and they decided to just take off GPU from Rewards altogether.
 
adamsapple said:
GPU wasn't 12K anymore, they already increased it to 17K earlier this year.
Click to expand...
You have to be level 2 to redeem for 12K points.

** Edit - I just noticed it's 17K to auto-redeem one month. Crazy it's 5K more to auto-redeem.

Also, they seemed to have removed the 3 month option. When did that happen?
 
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adamsapple said:
GPU wasn't 12K anymore, they already increased it to 17K earlier this year.
Click to expand...
I'm still paying 12k for a months sub.

This change means my ride is officially over. I barely scrape the 12k points a month as it is. I reckon I'll have to start forking out cold hard cash once every three months.

Ah well, it was good while it lasted!
 
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Topher said:
Yeah, but if I use points directly then I have zero cash out of pocket. For me, that has been the entire point of MS rewards.
Click to expand...
I don't know if I understand you, but for some time now, there's been the option to convert your rewards points into cash, in any amount you want, without being limited to the fixed, rounded amounts of the cards.

That is, I choose the amount of points I want to convert into cash and use it to buy games in the store in the quantity I need. For me, that's more important and beneficial. In fact, I still can't believe they'll enable something like this.

And as I said, buying a GPS pass subscription from the official store when you can get much better deals in third-party stores and using the conversion is a mistake.
 
Darsxx82 said:
I don't know if I understand you, but for some time now, there's been the option to convert your rewards points into cash, in any amount you want, without being limited to the fixed, rounded amounts of the cards.

That is, I choose the amount of points I want to convert into cash and use it to buy games in the store in the quantity I need. For me, that's more important and beneficial. In fact, I still can't believe they'll enable something like this.

And as I said, buying a GPS pass subscription from the official store when you can get much better deals in third-party stores and using the conversion is a mistake.
Click to expand...

How do you convert rewards points into cash? Are you talking about gift cards?
 
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Topher said:
How do you convert rewards points into cash? Are you talking about gift cards?
Click to expand...
In the latest update, they added the option to convert your points into cash in any amount you want, without having to purchase gift cards with predetermined amounts.
Now you can redeem, for example, $6, $7, $13... whatever amount you need, and the conversion is more beneficial.
 
Darsxx82 said:
In the latest update, they added the option to convert your points into cash in any amount you want, without having to purchase gift cards with predetermined amounts.
Now you can redeem, for example, $6, $7, $13... whatever amount you need, and the conversion is more beneficial.
Click to expand...

What region are you in? I don't see that option anywhere. I check the Rewards page and the app.
 
Topher said:
Because they charge more points for Xbox gift cards than they do Game Pass subscriptions.

$12 Xbox Gift Card - 11400 <-- price of PC Game Pass
$20 Xbox Gift Card - 19000 <-- price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Point costs for subs....

PC Game Pass - 7750
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate - 12000
Click to expand...
Oh No Omg GIF
 
Topher said:
What region are you in? I don't see that option anywhere. I check the Rewards page and the app.
Click to expand...
Europe but the update was global.

I've never done it from the Microsoft website or Store but fron console OS where is easy redeem points.
One option is to manually redeem yourself by typing in the amount of money you want.
 
Darsxx82 said:
Europe but the update was global.

I've never done it from the Microsoft website or Store but fron console OS where is easy redeem points.
One option is to manually redeem yourself by typing in the amount of money you want.
Click to expand...

Is it console only then? adamsapple adamsapple have you seen this option?
 
Figured this was gonna happen, the reward points thing was never gonna last as you could just get free game pass by using their search engine + other services.

They'll adding difficulty to the process until they eventually phase it out or make it too useless to bother with.

Literally the same enshittification all the silicon valley business models do too. I like Game Pass, but it will eventually succumb to this, and I'll eventually have my drop out point.
 
Topher said:
That's a gift card my man
Click to expand...
Oh, were you referring to converting them into money to use outside of the MS/Xbox store? I was always talking about converting points into money to use in the MS Store to buy games and other things.

As I said, now you can choose the number of points to use and the amount of money to redeem by typing it in that tab, and you don't have to resort to the various typical €2-€5-€10 gift cards you used to have.
 
Darsxx82 said:
Oh, were you referring to converting them into money to use outside of the MS/Xbox store? I was always talking about converting points into money to use in the MS Store to buy games and other things.

As I said, now you can choose the number of points to use and the amount of money to redeem by typing it in that tab, and you don't have to resort to the various typical €2-€5-€10 gift cards you used to have.
Click to expand...

Yeah....no worries. I knew you could choose whatever amount you wanted. That's a cool feature they added.
 
I wonder how many people engage with this reward system... i don't think is a lot people do, but those who engage with it must be squeezing the value out of it.
 
bruh i only just saw it and its october 1 where i live already. Cant redeem pc game pass anymore :( wtf i got over 100k points
 
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