Microsoft Quietly Opens Up Outlook Premium To Everyone (in the US)

outlook-premium-hero

Earlier this year, it was uncovered that Microsoft was testing a premium version of its Outlook.com service and now this offer is open to everyone. Microsoft is moving Outlook Premium to the preview stage and out of private beta testing.

The service, which offers an ad-free inbox, 5 personalized emails, and advanced calendar sharing options will set you back $19.95 a year. This price is a promotional offer as it will typically cost $49.99, according to the landing page that was spotted by Mary Jo.

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Much to the chagrin of many users reading this, the offer is only available to those who live in the US. Microsoft has made a bad habit of only limiting many of its products, at least at launch, to the US market and has been slow to expand beyond its own shores in recent years with new products/devices.

At one point during beta period, it was speculated that Microsoft may offer this program free to everyone with an active Office 365 subscription but digging into the FAQs, there is no mention of a cross-promotion between the two services.

What’s a bit odd is that Outlook.com currently does have a premium service to only remove ads. As of right now, that option costs $19.95 a year which means the Outlook premium, at the discounted rate, is a much better deal.

If you are interested, you can sign up for Outlook Premium, here.

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  • 188

    Premium Member
    18 October, 2016 - 8:05 am

    <p>My Hotmail address goes back to somewhere around the mid nineties.&nbsp; this is what I see when I try to login to the Outlook Premium site:</p>
    <p style="padding-left: 30px;">"It looks like your account may take up to several weeks to set up with Outlook.com Premium.</p>
    <p style="padding-left: 30px;">We suggest creating a new Microsoft account."</p>
    <p>Seems "first in, first out" is not in play here, eh Paul?</p>

    • 256

      18 October, 2016 - 8:16 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#21262">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/wpylant">wpylant</a><a href="#21262">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>I see the same thing. I have been waiting for this to go live and now this.</p>

    • 5234

      18 October, 2016 - 8:17 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#21262">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/wpylant">wpylant</a><a href="#21262">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Outlook.com addresses were moved first. &nbsp;Older domains have to wait.</p>

    • 701

      Premium Member
      18 October, 2016 - 8:17 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#21262">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/wpylant">wpylant</a>:&nbsp;I’m also seeing the same thing.</em></blockquote>
      <p>&nbsp;</p>

    • 5234

      18 October, 2016 - 8:17 am

      <blockquote><em>Seems "first in, first out" is not in play here, eh Paul?</em></blockquote>
      <blockquote><em><a href="#21262">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/wpylant">wpylant</a><a href="#21262">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>It’s "Little Paul".</p>

    • 1808

      18 October, 2016 - 12:26 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#21262">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/wpylant">wpylant</a><a href="#21262">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Yeah.&nbsp; [SIGH]&nbsp; I love how the concept of simply creating a new account is thrown out there like "Ah…just sign up for a new one!&nbsp; I mean, how much of the Microsoft user experience could you POSSIBLY have tied up in a 20-year-old account anyway?" <br /><br />Boo.&nbsp; Hiss.&nbsp; ;(</p>

    • 571

      Premium Member
      18 October, 2016 - 2:10 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#21262">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/wpylant">wpylant</a><a href="#21262">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>I’m seeing the same thing. Like I really want to give up an outlook.com address I’ve had since they switched the name to that and a hotmail.com address I’ve had since the beginnig of that service.</p>
      <p>&nbsp;</p>
      <p>Microsoft has sent me two emails in the past 3 weeks telling me, "We&rsquo;re now ready to roll out this upgrade to you.", but still no upgrade.&nbsp;</p>

    • 1561

      Premium Member
      18 October, 2016 - 11:58 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#21262">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/wpylant">wpylant</a><a href="#21262">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Yeppers. Same for me too. It’s like I’m being punished for having an original Hotmail account and actually using it fully over the last 20 years. X(</p>

    • 188

      Premium Member
      29 October, 2016 - 8:42 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#21262">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/wpylant">wpylant</a><a href="#21262">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>The landing page appears to be broken this morning.&nbsp;</p>
      <p>Logged on to outlook.com yesterday and lo’ and behold … I got Outlook Mail.&nbsp; 😉 Nice.</p>

  • 265

    Premium Member
    18 October, 2016 - 8:24 am

    <p>What fresh madness is this? I’m seeing the same "suggestion" that I open a new account, when my longstanding outlook.com account is not coincidentally&nbsp;tied to my given name.</p>

  • 256

    18 October, 2016 - 8:54 am

    <p>Just to test I setup a new account (as my current account has not been migrated yet) and see that I can’t use a domain I already own. &nbsp;That makes this useless for me .</p>

    • 430

      Premium Member
      18 October, 2016 - 9:11 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#21270">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/torsampo">torsampo</a><a href="#21270">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>When I logged in, it gave me the option to use an existing domain, and when I chose it, it takes me to a screen with the details of the MX record I need to configure on the host’s side.&nbsp;&nbsp; I didn’t complete it because I was just testing the waters, but it did give me the option.</p>

      • 256

        18 October, 2016 - 9:21 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#21272">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/bassoprofundo">bassoprofundo</a><a href="#21272">:</a></em></blockquote>
        <p>I got no such option. Instead I got the message "This domain is already provisioned. Please try a different one!". &nbsp;I tried with two different domains I own.</p>

        • 2330

          18 October, 2016 - 12:34 pm

          <blockquote><em><a href="#21276">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/torsampo">torsampo</a><a href="#21276">:</a></em></blockquote>
          <p>See my response at the top, I faced the same issue.&nbsp;</p>

  • 430

    Premium Member
    18 October, 2016 - 9:13 am

    <p>What about those of us grandfathered over from Windows Live Domains?&nbsp; I still have my family’s accounts under a domain name I own and hosted via what <em>was</em> WLD before they sunsetted it.&nbsp; I haven’t been able to make any additions or removals for some time now, but the accounts themselves keep on trucking along.&nbsp; I’d like to know if there’s a migration plan somewhere in the works.</p>

  • 742

    Premium Member
    18 October, 2016 - 9:18 am

    <p>*sigh* to the US only thing…</p>
    <p>I just wish that each time they do this they’d explain why they’ve chosen to go&nbsp;US only, perhaps with what blockers they have that prevents them from expanding outside the US and a rough timeline to address them&nbsp;(if available)?</p>

  • 2330

    18 October, 2016 - 12:33 pm

    <p>Thanks for this article, I changed from O365 to it immediatly.</p>
    <p>I had to delete my user and domain out of 365 and force an empty of the Recycle Bin to get it to allow me past the domain already provisioned error.</p>
    <p>This also explains why my legacy O365 account that I had set as my Windows Live ID stopped working via auto discover two weeks ago (they were preparing for this and switching things around) – I ended up having to delete that alias from WL and use a generic outlook one (which with the new service, we still can’t set the alias as the primary, which is dumb imo but you can login with it).</p>

    • 256

      18 October, 2016 - 5:18 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#21334">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/Thayios">Thayios</a><a href="#21334">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Thanks for the memory jog! I found an old, long defunct O365 Business Essentials account that still had my two domains buried in an alias for that account. I had to temporarily renew the Exchange license on that account to remove the alias, but once done I was able to use the domains with Outlook Premium.</p>

    • 5316

      Premium Member
      19 October, 2016 - 6:11 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="../../../../users/Thayios">Thayios</a><a href="#21334"> Posted</a></em><br />
      <p>This also explains why my legacy O365 account that I had set as my Windows Live ID stopped working via auto discover two weeks ago (they were preparing for this and switching things around)</p>
      </blockquote>
      <p>Great catch.</p>

  • 5553

    18 October, 2016 - 12:53 pm

    <p>I thought it was free…misleading &nbsp;pass&nbsp;</p>

    • 5615

      18 October, 2016 - 3:07 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#21337">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/Joe_Blo">Joe_Blo</a><a href="#21337">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Yeah, that’s what I thought, too, when I saw the headline: "Microsoft Quietly Opens Up Outlook Premium To Everyone." "Oh, they’re letting everyone use it? Not just folks&nbsp;who pay?" Nope.</p>

  • 6437

    18 October, 2016 - 1:09 pm

    <p>&nbsp;Only works if you have the new Outlook. &nbsp;Freaking BS.!&nbsp;</p>

  • 5554

    18 October, 2016 - 1:11 pm

    <p>"U.S. only". &nbsp;lmao.</p>
    <p>Someone needs to inform Microsoft that the internet is global</p>

  • 879

    Premium Member
    19 October, 2016 - 1:54 am

    <p>That’s a bummer considering they didn’t have the "US only" limitation for registrations in the testing period and I was able to signup then.<br />I actually had to wait a few weeks after the initial request for testers was put out there as they didn’t originally support bringing your own domain across. You could only get it by registering a new one. When I didn’t complete the initial setup after I hit this issue I got a nice email from them about a couple of days later wondering why I hadn’t completed the process, after explaining the issue they said that was going to be an option with a couple of weeks (which surprisingly it was).</p>
    <p>Hopefully I don’t all of a sudden lose access to my custom email addresses now that I have it rolled out to my family.</p>

  • 442

    19 October, 2016 - 5:39 am

    <p>I’d pay $19.95 per year for this, but $50 is too much.&nbsp; For $30 more you get full Office with this premium setup, right?&nbsp; For the $50, they should offer Outlook Pro along with full Office online, kind of like the cheapest business setup without the URL and support thing.</p>

  • 459

    Premium Member
    19 October, 2016 - 8:20 am

    <p>Funny, I did not think I would be interested in Outlook.com at all. But, I have already switched from the Windows 10 Mail app to using Outlook.com exclusively. I like the way it looks and works better than any email solution&nbsp;I’ve used before. Good work, Microsoft!</p>

  • 6991

    19 October, 2016 - 8:41 am

    <p>I have an old Windows Live Domain account and got this error:<br /><br /></p>
    <p>"It looks like your account may take up to several weeks to set up with Outlook.com Premium.</p>
    <p>We suggest creating a new Microsoft account."<br /><br />They’re joking, right??</p>

  • 2693

    Premium Member
    19 October, 2016 - 4:08 pm

    <p>It’s not letting me use my own domain. Every time I try, it goes into a loop asking for payment over and over again. It won’t let me past it. My ads are gone, but I could have done that with ad-block. I want my $20 back….</p>

  • 5947

    21 October, 2016 - 7:09 am

    <p>I get:</p>
    <p>It looks like your account may take up to several weeks to set up with Outlook.com Premium.<br />We suggest creating a new Microsoft account.<br />Do you want to create a new Microsoft account?</p>
    <p>&nbsp;</p>
    <p>No, Microsoft, I don’t.&nbsp; But, now I know why I have the old outlook.com</p>

  • 8448

    02 December, 2016 - 6:20 pm

    <p>If you are trying to use your own domain and an existing Outlook account, you should wait until this is really ready for primetime.</p>
    <p>I tried to use my own domain — registered elsewhere. I have my own email working&nbsp;but not my wife’s.</p>
    <p>The main problem is that the web site explains none of the issues you must deal with. So everything is trial and error.</p>
    <p>Support for this is very slow. And the responses are extremely terse — answering only one, narrow interpretation of the first paragraph of the email and ignoring the rest. Very frustrating.</p>
    <p>I have worked on this for&nbsp;18 days now (total time approx. 20 hours).&nbsp;Microsoft just fixed one broken web page for me, but now I have a new problem.</p>
    <p>So I am back into the email queue for help.</p>
    <p>&nbsp;</p>

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