Lumia 950/950 XL Users: Get Office 365 Personal for Free

Lumia 950 and 950 XL buyers can get a free year of Office 365 Personal for free. But be aware that this offer won’t work if you already have Office 365 Home.

Note: I would have written this up hours ago, thanks to a tip from Johanvan Mierlo. But the issue for Office 365 Home subscribers tripped me up.

The offer is available to all Lumia 950 and 950 XL buyers in the U.S., UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. You just need to have purchased the device between November 20, 2015 to June 30, 2016, which is of course everybody at the moment. It is a limited time offer, but the expiration is months away: July 30, 2016.

To check if you qualify, download the Lumia Offers app from the Store to your Lumia 950 or 950 XL. It will present whatever offers are available. For me, this was just the Office 365 Personal offer.

Step through the mini-wizard and you’ll be sent an email explaining that you’re ready to claim your one year “Office 365 Personal subscription for 1 PC/Mac, 1 tablet and 1 smartphone, a $69.99 value, while supplies last.” This involves clicking a “Claim Offer” button in the email, which loads a page on the Microsoft Store web site.

When you apply the discount, the price changes from $69.99 to $0.00.

But again, there’s a catch. If you already have an Office 365 Home subscription, be very careful not to redeem this offer. As the Store page notes:

Office 365 Personal can only be used on 1 PC or Mac and 1 tablet, and cannot be shared. You’re sharing your current Office subscription. To continue, go to your account page and remove anyone you shared with, and deactivate Office on all but 1 PC or Mac and 1 tablet. After that, please start your purchase again.

Obviously, this offer should simply extend your Office 365 Home subscription by 9 months. Hopefully this gets fixed.