M365 Personal Subscription

Question

M365 Personal Subscription

Stevie Hastie 20

I bought a new laptop with one month of O365 free. I also bought a 12 month M365 Person subscription. intention was to use the free month then apply the new code for the 12 months. However, I thought I would be notified when the free 1 month was ending, but I was not and a charge has been made on my credit card yesterday. I have now applied the 12 month subscription using the code I have, and wan to cancel that charge on my credit card.

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Answer 1

Nathan Roberts (SN) 14,201 Student Ambassador Volunteer Moderator

Hey there, Stevie Hastie

Unfortunately, you are not notified if the trial subscription is about to be renewed. Instead, I always recommend turning off auto renewal after the free trial has been added, to ensure you are not charged. You can always turn this back on when it comes to renew if you wish to continue using Microsoft 365. When you have turned off auto renewal, you are notified when the subscription is about to end as it asks you to either redeem a new code or turn on auto renew.

If you have redeemed the personal subscription, you won't be able to cancel the subscription and get a refund. Instead, what should have happened is the subscription should have stacked. So you should see you have your month subscription and the 12 month subscription added together (showing it will expire in 13 months time) when you sign into the subscription management page here: https://account.microsoft.com/services/microsoft365/details#billing

The date will be shown under manage subscription.

I feel that if you tried to cancel the subscription, you would loose your 1 year subscription too. Instead, if you had cancelled the subscription first, before redeeming the 12 month sub, it may have offered a refund. You can try reaching out to Microsoft support to see if they can adjust something on their side and offer a refund. They can be contacted through this link: https://support.microsoft.com/contactUs

Hope this helps,
Nathan

Stevie Hastie 20 Reputation points

2026-10-28T14:39:56.62+00:00

Hi Nathan, this is very helpful, many thanks.

After much searching I eventually managed to find the link to chat to a human, who dealt with the situation quickly and arranged the refund. The next few days will tell if 1) the refund comes through and 2) if the new 12 month sub I applied continues to work!

Since posting my original message, I have noticed emails to my Microsoft email address notifying me that the original 1 month subscription was ending so that was my oversight. And on this basis I'm therefore happy to keep the auto subscription in place now for future years.

Thanks again!
Nathan Roberts (SN) 14,201 Reputation points Student Ambassador Volunteer Moderator

2026-10-28T15:24:32.1+00:00

Hey there, Stevie Hastie

You're welcome, and I am glad you have managed to get this sorted. I have learnt something new, which is you do get notifications on renewals. I thought this was for when a sub was expiring without auto renewal on. Or for Microsoft 365 business subscriptions.

Thanks for letting us know what happened with support 😎

Thanks,
Nathan