Update 9/2/20: This also works for existing users to extend their memberships. Hat tip to philipdistefano
Contents
The Offer
Direct link to offer (our affiliate link)
- Best Buy is offering a three month free trial for Microsoft Office 365 Personal or Family when you use the promo code M365FREETRIAL
Our Verdict
This enrolls you in auto billing, so remember to cancel otherwise you’ll be charged $69.99 or $99.99. Libre Office is a great free alternative for those looking for one.
Doin the lords work plugging open source my man, Libre!
Caution for anyone considering buying this to add 3 months to their existing Office subscription:
Speaking from experience: you can use this deal to extend your existing subscription by 3 months, but then your existing (and now extended) Office subscription will be managed by Best Buy’s system. That means that any links for adding a new Office license code or for renewing the subscription through Microsoft will be gone. There will just be a link to “manage” the subscription through Best Buy, where the self-serve options are very limited (all you can do is provide a credit card for auto renewals).
I wonder if this can be undone by calling Best Buy and having them cancel the subscription on their end (the terms allow this up until the expiration date of the current term). Anyway, in the meantime, in this state, it’s not possible to add other Office license codes from the Microsoft side.
If you have an existing Office subscription, it might be better to just wait for an Office deal that isn’t a digital download through Best Buy.
According to some posters on SD, once you cancel your account through Best Buy’s portal, servicing of the account switches back to Microsoft and you should then be able to redeem other codes.
Thanks! I’ll try that. I also found the link posted by
boofat below, which is helpful.
Update: I was able to cancel the auto renewal for the subscription via Best Buy, but my Microsoft Account still shows that the license was purchased from Best Buy, so it refers me to Best Buy to manage the subscription. There is still no way for me to do anything with the subscription through Microsoft directly.
I’ve Googled this a bit and have found a few people who ran into this problem and weren’t able to get anyone at Best Buy or Microsoft to change the subscription back to being managed on the Microsoft side.
I only see one other possibility: perhaps control of the subscription will go back to Microsoft after the subscription completely expires. I haven’t found any definitive reports of this working or not working—just other users wondering the same thing.
Bottom line: I still recommend against using a Best Buy digital license to extend your existing Microsoft subscription.
William Charles , maybe this problem should be mentioned in the main post?
Also beware: There may be other third party retailers whose Microsoft licenses also lock you into their licensing system.
Or just buy from Costco the 15-month (6 users) plan for $89.99
Thanks. You saved me tha munmuns.
+1 for LibreOffice plug.
Can you read docs from Microsoft in Libreoffice that have been saved in word or excel? If I have a word doc and I want to save after making changes can I do so in Libreoffice?
Yes you can. Once in a while complicated formatting or programming gets messed up, but for normal docs LibreOffice is great.
Just to expand on what DoC said about free alternatives;
– Before anyone pays for Office, some businesses, govt, and some schools, both private and public, offer Office for reduced prices or free. Used to be called the home use program…
– The free alternatives have also gotten pretty good over the years… LibreOffice, OpenOffice, etc. I have found I can do all the same stuff, just the menus are a little more difficult to navigate IMO. Only takes a few seconds to Google to find how to find the setting usually.
– I would say if you share a lot of docs, databases, with people/colleagues/classmates that are using strictly MS Office then yeah, maximum compatibility is a must and you might be better off with MS Office. I have seen where a file saved in one office type program does not carry over exactly the same in another office type program, even if you play with the file types or settings. You can’t tell your professor or boss they need to download X font, change the margins to x & y, and disable a setting on the 3rd tab of advanced options to fix their viewing.
https://www.howtogeek.com/667717/how-to-get-microsoft-office-for-free/
I work at a college and looked for the free version at our tech store to download. It seems now we only have access to the online version which sucks.
Hello. I’ve considered buying this but Microsoft offers free online versions of excel PowerPoint Word outlook and OneDrive so I’ve just been using those for the past few years and have been able to do all of the basic tasks that I need to do.
I hate the online version that my employer offers.
Can you save your docs on your flashdrive and hard drive or is it similar to Google docs only thru the internet?
Google Docs allows you to download and save your files to local drives.
Files saved in the “cloud”, to MS OneDrive or Google Drive, are movable or copyable to a flash drive or hard drive, etc… you just have to learn how. I don’t currently use them often enough to explain it, but I am sure you can Google it. Pretty much drag and drop IIRC.
Can we cancel right away?
+1
Yes. Sign in to Best Buy and go here: https://www.bestbuy.com/services/planlist to cancel but be sure to select keep your subscription.