PS Plus Black Friday Discounts Again Seem Completely Random

Call me crazy but I think Sony actively hates its own customers

Seems I’m getting 30% off premium renewal. I always buy this time of year though so I could have just let it lapse and then buy anyway. Maybe they look at this.

My friend and I (both from Australia) got the offer.

Please help me, I am obviously not a clever person:
My Essential subscription will expire in 32 days. If I want to upgrade to Extra of Premium (interesting for PSVR2), I can only buy a discounted upgrade for this remaining 32 days.
My questions:
Must I first book Essential (for 1 year), and then the upgrade is available for one year? Or for the remaining time of 32 + 365 days? And is there an option to book Premium directly for 1 year, without doing the upgrade for the remaining 32 days?

Thanks for your support!

I'm another whose not getting the offer to renew or extend at a discount, its pretty shoddy all round, offer it to everyone or not at all really.

Definitely a big middle finger up to the premium subscribers. Costs more to get a new customer than to maintain a current one

My essentiall subscription was about to expire on the 27th ,today I saw that I could extended it and I managed to do it.

Going to post here also so more visible -

If you want a ps5. Best place in UK is very 400 for disc console, BUT if you are a new sign up (use a family member) you get an extra 20% off and pay over 6 months.

So we are getting it for £320.

Blast it, I might have to just upgrade from my Extra to the Premium tier since I want that new Portal cloud streaming. It saves me $10 to upgrade now versus waiting. I hate getting committed to Premium though since it means I can’t stack any subs on lower levels later if there’s a sale and I want to downgrade. Unless they’ve changed it, you can’t go down a tier without letting your entire sub expire.

Interesting. I drop in and out depending on the months offerings so I'm probably on Extra for 2 months in the year. I got the 30% discount offer today. Maybe they look at those who they aren't retaining on the service as often?

@Max_the_German I get what you're facing. Since you want to upgrade (either Extra or Premium), there is a discount for the remaining 32 days.

I would say do the upgrade which covers only 32 days and then get the discounted deal for Black Friday which will be an additional 365 days in your subscription.

My Extra subscription expired next month and I was offered a 25% discount on extending, which I took. I then topped up my account with the 15% off PSN credit from ShopTo so my year of Extra PS plus cost me £68, like £5.60/month which I thought was pretty good compared to other subscriptions, less than half of Netflix efc

Pretty typical behavior courting the potential customers over the ones you already have but the randomness is a little strange.

Also, so they completely did away with redeeming gift cards in the Stars program? I may have to go back to physical. Sigh.

My PS+ Extra subscription ends on the 4th December so I've bought some credit for my wallet from ShopTo with a reasonable discount and I'm dropping to Essential.
Thanks for nothing, Sony! Only been with you since the original PlayStation days...

I got the offer for 30% off premium, 25% off Extra and 20% off essential. The actual price difference between premium and extra is only $10.73. I intentionally let my sub expire in Sept for the sale.

For anyone who is set to expire in the next month or so let it expire and they will probably offer this again at the end/beginning of the year.

Am I correct in saying that in the last few black Fridays everyone got a discount and no matter the tier?
Mine always expires 31st December and I can't remember paying full price in ages , I'm the middle tier and I don't really want the Premium as it's just a load of rubbish PS1 PS2 stuff which I enjoyed 30 years ago but have absolutely no desire to revisit as it spoils the memories.

My premium sub was about to expire a few months ago, so I added some money to my account. Surprisingly I was only charged 70 quid for a year. Not sure how, but I can't complain.

My subscription ends on the 27th - and so far my only discount is on the days left on my existing contract and any renewal or upgrade to a higher tier, is at full price.
Sony, you truly suck sometimes.....

I always get a note from Sony when my sub is about to expire. So far I was always offered a discount if I extended, which I always did so far.

I am in premium and got no offer to renew... Just like last year, great.

@stripmallp thats what i did last year and worked fine, i have a notification of my sub to expire 12 of decenber, so i exped a new offer around those days

Aaargh I still can’t seem to score the PS VR2 Horizon bundle for € 399 in the Netherlands. Our local direct.playstation.com actually shows the bundle, but for the old price while it’s listed in the Black Friday lineup. All other shops only sell the PS VR2 without Horizon, so I don’t know if I should bite yet before that one’s gone.

Edit: Finally it worked! Got myself a bundle 😄

Oh i am just annoyed that FFXVI with dlc or stand alone editions are on sale but the dlc alone isn't.

Extra runs out in December for me, and I have the option to buy another year at the same tier with 25% discount. Same happened last year.

Got the 30% deal showing for me, makes sense as I usually wait for Black Friday and this tends to be my one purchase of the year games wise now.

@thefourfoldroot1 @thefourfoldroot1 mine expires the 30th of this month and I don't get a discount

Always Made sure mine ends on black Friday, so I expect a discount next week. We'll see

It seems basically everyone here got offered a discount, myself included.

Are we sure some of the comments from people on Reddit weren't just them thinking they hadn't got a discount when in actual fact the PS Plus discount just hadn't went live in their region yet? Because from the comments I saw on Reddit that seemed to be the case.

What I’m disappointed about is, I’ve decided to get the Portal and then upgrade to a premium account. But because I’m a plus member already until January, I only get the 30% discount for a month!! I was all excited to upgrade and get that off for the whole year. It’s weird how they “punish” customers. Oh well, I was going to cancel altogether after having it from day one, but that streaming portal update got me.

I literally let my PS plus run down last month knowing I'd get the black Friday deal

Anybody heard about any great deals on anything gnome themed?

Mine is set to expire on the 26th and I'm not seeing the discount. I'm in the US and the renewal price for the current tier (Extra) is the usual $135. In every past year I've been able to renew at a discount, but I'm not seeing an option this time.

For those of you seeing the discount, where are you looking? I've only checked the PS iOS app thus far, which is where I usually buy games. Have not tried through the PS5 version of the PS Store yet.

I've done without Plus since last December specifically because of this as it happens every year, you can get the discount if yours ends during the sale, so today I got the premium tier for £83.99 and use Shopto cards to get that down to £74.25. I've then set it to cancel when it runs out on 22/11/25 when the sale will likely be on again, and I'll renew then again.

By lining up the dates with the start of the sale I should be good for getting it at the discount for the next few years.

My premium just ran out but I don't expect to manage even 111 bucks before discount deadline (unless 12/2 in the app means literal December 2 circa 6 p.m. but even then the odds are slim), and the shorter periods aren't on sale. With November "essentials" already redeemed, perhaps I'll really just have it all lapse for a month and then see if I can invest some of the holiday budget in a quarter's resub at the usual price.

$190 CAD/YR is too much for a streaming service. Yikes, and no discount being offered.

I let my Plus membership lapse in early November, before the Nov Essential games dropped, hoping for a sale like this.

I'll renew on the last day I can redeem the Nov games, because I didn't finish Ghostwire Tokyo when it was on the middle tier, but I may be going with just the Essential tier this time.

I wish the upgrade would be to pay for the rest of your tier upgrades AND for the 12 months following

Starting to think Sony created a black list of people who stacked premium membership for £30 a year from the old streaming sub membership, and don't give them discounts!

I got the 30% off continuing Premium sub and mine current one doesn't lapse until 24th Feb next year. With discounted credit it cost me just over £73 for the year. Not sure why I got the offer but I'll take it.

I noticed same thing with hitman woa game, they ripping off old customers who paid for the 1st 2 games and dlcs, selling only the 3rd game as a full package, having to pay a hefty price just to add the content of h3 woa.

Even have to pay for the deluxe version to not lose maps, etc from previous games, at 133cad $, not cheap.
Even then, you still have to pay again for the sarajevo 6 dlc.

Mines runs out in 4 days days I can upgrade to premium for 22p for the remaining 4 days lol but then it's full price after that. I have to cancel anyway can't afford it this month lost a lot of work due to illness

So my Extra subscription comes up on 2 Jan... and no discount for me, as it's still showing up as AU170 (about GBP 90?). So, the fact that it's so random just seems incompetent or unethical. Any... I've already decided to drop back down to Essential...

They call this promotions? Seriously?! When you see on microstore for xbox i think...how on xbox theres real promotions? When i see a fisical disc for exemple: star wars here in my country is much less then ps store. Sony! Seriously! Have a more respect with yours players ok

@NeuralDeclan Same offered the 25% to re-sub PS Plus Extra (mien due to expire end of January 2025). Similarly bought a Shopto PSN digital voucher. Best time to re-sub.

Currently I have 20% on essential if I renew now. Subscription ends in February so 3 months left. I’m probably going to take the deal.

@Illyrian You are not crazy my friend, Sonny is taking the piss. Sonny is taking it too far lately with their greedyness. Never have I seen an offer to extend my subscription at a discont. Unfriendly customer service towards is

@WafflingHearts I have no such offer, my sub for extra ends April.

My sub ends on 11/28. I wonder if I let it lapse would I qualify for a discount? Or does "new members" literally mean brand new, never signed up before?

@AG_Awesome if you extend your Extra subscription for a year on the 30%/25% discount, once you have done that you can then upgrade your 13 months of extra (rather than one as currently) to premium for the discounted price, you just can't do it directly. That's what worked for me today as I was also sold on streaming to my Portal.

@NeuralDeclan So I upgraded to premium for my remaining subscription. But all it says still is 159.99 or whatever to add a year. No option to get it at 30% off. Are you UK based? I’m NA, so maybe that’s why? I’m pretty sad because I wanted that full year.

@AG_Awesome yes, UK based so maybe it's different, but can confirm that I had about a month of extra left, I upgraded an extra year of Extra subscription for £79.99, and I then had the option to upgrade my now 391 days of Extra subscription to premium for £15.02 which is a saving of 30% compared to full price £21.47. So overall, that's Premium for a year (in two steps) for £95 instead of the sticker price £120

@NeuralDeclan I see. You did your year renewal and then upgraded that. Ugh. I upgraded first. Maybe that’s why mine didn’t work out the same 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️. I wish they’d just do the 30% off for a year subscription for people.

@AG_Awesome agreed, a major tech company shouldn't need the customer to work out a special strategy to get the sale price on upgrading their subscription...

Oh right, another reason not to renew a sub. I hate when titles time out that I’ve not even played anyway best to proper own em with a digital purchase lol

Sony scours your comments on the internet and if they are you say anything negative they don't give you a discount.

A friend of mine got a discount to extend their Extra sub (not an upgrade) but I didn't get one to extend my Premium :/

Since the new tiers started, I've only ever been able to get a discount on upgrading from Extra to Premium. So this year i let my sub lapse and then got a 3 month sub, and let it expire again so i could take advanage of the Days of Play sale for new memebers.
Probably shouldn't have to do all that just to extend my sub at the descounted price. I understand they don't won't people stacking for a few years at a time, but surely they should give existing memebers more options.

I'm on essential, have a 20% discount showing to stack, really surprised.
Will pick up some credit from the cheapest place i can find and extend.

@NeuralDeclan I’m going to see if I can cancel the upgrade since there’s a 14 day return? Add a year of my old, then try the upgrade again. Such an annoying pain in the butt though!

Sony is just following a sales pattern. They want people locked in to pay more later, so it makes sense to not make the sale available to existing subs. Im guessing those that get it and are subbed are like I was and coming up to a subscription renewal.

This Sept I had cancelled autopay and planned on being completely unsubbed for the first time since ps+ launched its paid sub. It got to the day of renewal for me and they sent a notice offering me 30% to stay. (I wont pay more than $120 a year for ps+ in its current state, though it has been improving)

So just a hunch, but my guess is that its not random, but rather calculated based on risk of loss.

I managed to upgrade my PS+ Premium (30% off) for £83.99! My current Premium runs out in February. I wonder how I could see the discount but others can't...

I'm getting 20% off if I renew my subscription, that's because my ps+ essential is up for renewal 16th December. I probably will renew it

@Waa-Laa did you do anything special? Or only going to the renew option?

@Nekomichu not that I know of mate, I went through the store on the PS5 itself.

@Waa-Laa thanks, I guess it must be random or region locked or somethig then

Those getting offered the discount while they're subscribed should count themselves lucky. I just went a year or two of being unsubscribed (apart from a random month here or there) because I wanted to downgrade from Premium to Extra but the offers didn't show up for me.

Thankfully, it showed up this year and I'm now subscribed to Extra. I'll keep checking back before 2nd Dec in case it decides to also let me stack it.

@GoodHunter93 Unfortunately I followed this advice. Once you upgrade, you can't take advantage of an extended time offer. You should first get as many months as you want on the essential tier, and THEN upgrade.