I, like many, was bugging out and anxious over my Game Pass Ultimate expiring on 8/8/23. I knew I was going to have to go though all the conversion crap, and was just really worried about the cost. Previously, you buy three 12-month Gold cards for about $180, then spend the (now) $17 for Ultimate, and boom, three years of Ultimate. Well, those days are gone, but I can report that I have roughly a bit more than three years of Ultimate now, for roughly that same price.

So, I knew my Ultimate was expiring on the 8th. I did all of the math as best I could (knowing that the conversion rate isn’t actually static), and went in a bit of a spending spree ahead of time. Using CDKeys, I bought 3 12 month packs, 1 6 month code, and 2 more 3 month codes, plus a code for Ultimate. They sent all of my purchases as 3-month codes, so I ended up with 16 3-month Xbox Live Gold codes, and one Game Pass Ultimate 1-month code. The total for all of those codes was $192, already less than three years of Gold, plus the upgrade to Ultimate through Microsoft. As a note, I don’t know if I ever bought Gold before through CDKeys, so I have no idea what that cost might have been three years ago. I just know that three years ago, I bought three years of Gold, and then did the upgrade for $1, which I believe you can only do once.

Anyway, now comes the interesting part, something I didn’t know, and something that threw off my calculations by at least 2 months, so I could have spent about $9 less. I confirmed on my Xbox that I no longer had Gold or Game Pass. I then opened up the Xbox web site, knowing that was going to be faster than entering 16 codes manually. I enter the first 3-month code, and the redemption screen says I get a free month if I turn on recurring billing. Okay, cool, I’ll take a free month. Well, it turns out, and I definitely would not have thought this would be true, EVERY 3-month code gave me 4 months if I had recurring billing on. So, to bank my 3 years of Gold, I only had to use 9 of my 12 initial 3-month codes (which is how they sent the 3 12-month Gold subs I bought).

I then kept track of everything I was doing, so that I could post it all here. My start date was today, 8/9/23. After 9 3-month codes (at 4 months each), my Gold end date was 8/11/26. At that point, I did try another 3 month code, to see if anything had changed, and it did not allow me to, 3 years is still the max. I then used the 1-month Game Pass Ultimate code I bought (it cost me $10.29), and that converted my 8/11/26 Gold end date, to a 10/15/25 Ultimate end date (that one had a free month, too). At this point, after conversion of three years of Gold, I have 2 years and two months of Ultimate. I am also still sitting on three 3-month codes (from the 3 12-month purchases), two 3 month codes (from the one 6-month card), and then two more 3-month codes. I will try to simplify this one, as I used five 3-month codes. I went from 10/15/25->12/6/25->1/26/26->3/18/26->5/9/26->6/30/26. At this point, it will not allow me to use my next 3-month code, as that would, apparently, push me past my max end date. So, now I just have two extra 3-month codes that I need to try every so often, in order to get them added.

All said and done, through CDKeys, I bought 3 12-month cards for $142.47, one 6-month card for $22.89, and two 3-month cards for $17.98, plus one 1-month Game Pass Ultimate card for $10.89. They sent ALL of my purchases as 3-month cards, which I think is of great benefit. My total, all said and done, was $194.23, and I have over three years of Game Pass Ultimate now. With them switching over to Core, this is probably the last time all of this nonsense is going to work. But, I thought everyone might want to read about my journey (and math!). I think they are using the original 8/11/26 end date of Gold as the premise for adding more time, as my upgrade to Ultimate end date is 10/15/25, and the end date after the final code I was allowed to use was 6/30/26. If 10/15/25 were actually being calculated as my end date, I would still be able to add the 50 or so days from a 3-month card, but I can’t. 50 days would put my current 6/30/26 end date at around 8/20/26, and it won’t allow it, so I think it is using the original 3-year end date of Gold to calculate my time, just on the back end, not visible to me.

I doubt I could answer many questions, but if there are any I can answer, I am happy to. I am in the US, by the way.