New customers can get three months’ free music streaming with no ads from Amazon and Apple, which’ll last for Christmas and New Year. Both will roll you over into a paid-for subscription – we explain how to cancel if you don’t want to continue below.
To get the most out of this, if you’ve never used either streaming services before, you could actually stagger the free trials to get three months on each – so in total six months’ free. Though if you’re doing this, start with Amazon as the offer is due to end soon (see below)
How to get 3mths’ free Amazon Music Unlimited
Here, you can stream over 40 million songs using its web player or app. Other than the normal 30-day free trial for new customers it’s a paid-for service, but this deal gets you an extra two months free.
Here’s what to do
1. First, buy the Groupon voucher and redeem by 11.59pm on Wed 25 Oct. Go online to Groupon*, select an individual or family subscription and click ‘buy’ (even though you’re not actually buying anything). Then go via this specific Amazon* link and enter Groupon voucher code. Make sure you do this step first or you’ll invalidate the offer.
2. Then sign up to the 30-day free trial and get two extra months free. Go to Amazon Music Unlimited* and click ‘start your 30-day free trial’. Your additional two months via the Groupon promotion will be applied after your 30-day trial. You’ll need to enter your card details but won’t be charged if you cancel after three months.
What does it normally cost?
As an individual it’s normally £9.99/mth (£7.99 for Prime members), and for families of up to six people it’s £14.99/mth (£149 for the full year for Prime members).
How to cancel
Go to your Amazon Music settings* and select ‘cancel’ under ‘your subscription renewal’. Amazon refused to comment on the cut-off day you need to cancel by, before being charged. However on the Amazon website it says that when you cancel, you’ll see an end date on screen and you’ll have access to Amazon Music Unlimited until that date – so to be safe, we reckon it’s worth cancelling just after you enter your third free month.
How to get 3mths’ free Apple Music
It also lets you stream over 40 million songs. Again, there’s no free version but it comes with a three-month free trial for new customers. So this isn’t a special deal, but we thought we’d tell you about it given the Amazon deal above.
Here’s what to do
1. Sign up to the free 3mth trial for new customers. Download iTunes or the Apple Music app – iOS devices will already have it installed or you can download the Android app. A pop up will appear on screen saying you can sign up for three months for free, or you can go into the ‘for you’ section and sign up there. This has been an ongoing offer – we’ve asked Apple for an end date and will update you here when we know more.
What does it normally cost?
As a student it’s normally £4.99/mth, as an individual it’s £9.99/mth, and for families of up to six people it’s £14.99/mth.
How to cancel
View your subscriptions in iTunes or the iOS app and you can cancel from there. To cancel via the Android app, you need to head to ‘manage subscriptions’ and turn off auto-renewal. You can see Apple’s how to cancel steps for full details.
We’ve asked Apple to confirm the cut-off date to cancel by before getting charged, but we’re still awaiting a response – we’ll update you here when we know more. However it says on Apple’s website that when you cancel, your subscription will continue to the end of your monthly cycle – so, we reckon you’re best off cancelling as soon as you enter your third free month.
What do you think of this deal? We’d love to hear your thoughts in our official forum thread or in the comments below.
