Xbox Game Pass gives you access to hundreds of titles, including new releases like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on Xbox consoles, PCs, phones and portable gaming devices. The popular Microsoft subscription gaming service starts at $10 a month, but you can get Game Pass for less -- even free -- if you know how.
The key is Microsoft Rewards, a loyalty program that rewards people who use Microsoft products such as Bing and Xbox. It only takes about 20 minutes a day to rack up enough points to get a free month of Xbox Game Pass and other rewards for using Microsoft's services.
Here's how to get a free month of Xbox Game Pass.
Get set up first
1. Sign up for Microsoft Rewards: Microsoft Rewards is free to sign up for at the Rewards website using a Microsoft account. You'll need to visit the Rewards site daily to do Bing searches and other activities to earn points.
2. Download the Bing app: Download the Bing app for your device, Android or iOS, and sign into your Microsoft account. The Bing app rewards points for daily check-ins, searches and other activities.
3. Sign up for Microsoft Rewards on an Xbox: This can be done on an Xbox One or Xbox Series console by downloading the Microsoft Rewards app via the Microsoft Store. There are daily, weekly and monthly activities available that can provide a lot of extra points just for playing video games.
4. Download the Xbox app: Like the Bing app, there are daily activities you can do on the Xbox app -- available on the App Store and Google Play -- that give you points once signed in with a Microsoft account.
How to start earning points
You need 12,000 points to auto-redeem one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. This is the highest tier of the Game Pass subscription, offering access to a game library for PC, Xbox or via cloud gaming, and costs $20 a month. There are other Game Pass options available for fewer points, or if gaming is not your thing, points can be redeemed for gift cards at places like Best Buy, Target or Amazon.
Here's a breakdown of what I do daily and how long everything takes.
Daily set
- Points gained: 50-150 plus a streak bonus
- Monthly total: Approximately 3,500 points
- Hardware used: Laptop, desktop, mobile
The Daily Set is a group of several activities found on the Microsoft Rewards page, accessible on both laptops or desktops and mobile if you request the desktop version of the page or via the Bing app. Most require a click on a link that takes you to a Bing search page for 5 to 10 points each. There's a daily quiz, usually about current events, that has three to 10 questions and can be worth 10 to 50 points. A daily poll is also available every day for 10 points.
The number of activities varies; some days have more than others. To get the streak bonus, which starts at 45 points after a three-day streak and maxes out at 105 points, you'll need to complete the top three activities on the page. To help keep your stream going, Microsoft offers Streak Protection to keep the bonus points coming even if you miss a day.
Bing browser searches
- Points gained: 150 points
- Monthly total: Approximately 4,500 points
- Hardware used: Laptop, desktop, mobile
Doing a search on Bing on a browser or via a desktop version of the page on a mobile browser will get you 5 points per search. How you want to handle doing these 30 search queries is up to you, but clicking random letters or numbers and doing a search for each will count toward the goal. There is a bit of a timer for each query so spamming searches one right after another might not count. Give yourself a few seconds between searches.
You can verify the points you earned by checking the Microsoft Rewards and clicking on "Today's Points" to see how many are from Bing.
Bing app searches and news
- Points gained: 130 points plus a streak bonus
- Monthly total: Approximately 4,000 points
- Hardware used: Mobile
Opening up the Bing app once you've signed in with your Microsoft Rewards account will display a Rewards widget. Click on that and it'll take you to the Reward home page where there's a daily check-in that starts at 5 points for the first two days, 10 points the next two days, 15 points for the following two days and a random bonus on the seventh day for 50 points. There's also a daily points bonus for doing three Bing searches. If you do this for 12 weeks in a row, there's a bonus of 1,000 points given.
Below the check-in is a "Search to earn'' widget. Click on that and it'll take you to a page with your search history and suggested news stories. There are also four search suggestions available on the widget that you can click on, and it'll take you straight to the search page.
Below the widget is another section titled "Read to earn." Click here to open up the Bing news page and click on 10 news stories to earn 30 points.
Get even more points with Xbox
If you want to pad your points or simply get the most points available, you'll need to do some work on your Xbox.
Xbox app activities
- Points gained: 40 points plus a streak bonus
- Monthly total: Approximately 2,200 points
- Hardware used: Mobile
On the Xbox mobile app, there are three daily activities. The first is a daily check-in for 25 points. For the second activity, the game Jewel can be played via the app. Complete two levels of the puzzle game to activate the points, which is just 5 points.
The third activity requires a Windows computer. Play a game with your Xbox account, whether it's something off of PC Game Pass or even Solitaire on Windows. This 15 minutes of playing to activate the 10-point reward. There's a 175-point bonus awarded when a PC game is played five times during a week.
Xbox Game Pass quests
- Points gained: 20 points plus a streak bonus
- Monthly total: Approximately 2,000-3,500 points
- Hardware used: Xbox One, Xbox Series X or S
There's a Microsoft Rewards app on the Xbox that has multiple activities for points. Every day there is a 10-point reward for playing a game on the console for 15 minutes and 10 points for playing a Game Pass game. Keep this up for five days and earn another 175 points. There's also another weekly streak reward that gives 100 bonus points a week and doubles the points for the following week.
Playing different Game Pass games also comes with rewards. Trying out four different Game Pass games a month will add up to 50 points and trying out eight different games will come with a reward of 350 points.
Doing all the activities above can earn more than 15,000 points per month, which is more than enough to redeem for 12,000 to get the free month of Game Pass Ultimate. The leftovers can build up over time to redeem for even more months of Game Pass Ultimate or use them to get an Amazon gift card and buy something from there.
If this all seems too much like work, check out our list of best Game Pass deals.