Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is an all-you-can-play video game subscription service. It gives you access to 500+ high-quality games, including day-one releases from 3rd party partners (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Hollow Knight Silksong) and all Xbox Game Studios titles. The list of games also includes a back catalog of titles from EA Play, Ubisoft+, and many other publishers. In addition to games, Game Pass Ultimate also gives you access to the top tier of Xbox Cloud Gaming, with new and improved streaming up to 1440P and bitrates we’ve clocked at north of 30 Mbps.
However, all those perks don’t come cheap. After a recent price hike, an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription costs $29.99 a month! If you play a game a month or more, the subscription can be easily worth the price. However, there are ways to access this incredible subscription at a much lower rate – playing totally by the rules!
One way is to purchase Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gift cards on sites like Amazon, which often offer them at promotional rates.
We’ve got an even better suggestion, however – use Microsoft Rewards points! Below is our guide on how to use the Microsoft Rewards program to get Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $6 every month! Our instructions have been updated to reflect all recent changes in 2025.
The Microsoft Rewards Program
Microsoft has a rewards program that lets you earn points in many ways. These points can be exchanged for gift cards (such as Xbox gift cards) and for real-world purchases. This is similar in spirit to Google’s “Opinion Rewards” program, but Microsoft’s program is much more expansive and much easier to earn points for.
A Microsoft reward point is typically worth about 5%-10% of a penny for most redemption options. However, one of the best redemption options is using your points for Xbox gift cards (unfortunately, Game Pass gift cards themselves are no longer available in the program). You can set up auto-redeem to turn 8750 points into $10 Xbox credits. That values each point at 11.4% of a cent.
You’ll actually have to sign up for the auto-redemption option using the Microsoft Rewards area on your Xbox itself. You can’t enable this option on the webpage.
So, how do you earn these Microsoft points? Well, to sign up for the Microsoft Rewards program, all you need is a Microsoft account (which you presumably already have if you are an Xbox user). Once signed into your Microsoft account, you can visit your rewards dashboard. There are tons of different ways to earn points that typically require minor adjustments to your routine and a few minutes of your time each day (which you can do while waiting in line or during other downtime throughout your day).
Earning Microsoft Reward Points
The below recommendations and point counts assume you have obtained tier 2 status in the Microsoft Rewards program (see the figure below) and already have an active Xbox Game Pass Ultimate account.
You need to obtain 500 reward points in the current or previous month to achieve Tier 2. Achieving Tier 2 greatly increases the rate at which you will earn future points.
In addition to Tier 2 status, being an Xbox Game Pass member greatly increases your earning potential via Xbox gaming as well! Game Pass Ultimate typically gives you 4x points on Xbox earning opportunities. These are bonuses assumed in the math below.
Searches With Bing
- Points Per Day: 250 (+ 27 streak bonus daily average)
- Points Per Month: 8,310
- Puzzle Piece Monthly Bonus Potential: 1,000
If you are like us, you probably already do tens of searches a day just throughout your natural activity. You are probably using Google. But, if you are willing to give Bing a try, Microsoft will reward you with up to 250 points a day (5 points a search for up to 150 points on desktop, 100 points on mobile, and an extra bonus per day if you keep up a streak (see the image below).
This streak bonus adds up to an average of 27 points a day. The puzzle pieces shown on day 7 also add up to rewards. When you get 12 puzzle pieces, you earn a bonus 1,000 reward points! It typically takes a month to get 12 pieces from the various activities that earn them (the search streak, Bing mobile app streak and an Outlook email streak – see below for details on these).
We, like most people, find Google’s search results a little more reliable than Bing’s. But, more often than not, Bing results do get us where we want to go. So, we use Bing as our first search engine and move to Google if necessary. In this way, we really aren’t using any more time per day than we usually do.
You can see your points going up every time you search in Bing, right at the top of your browser. Check out the screenshot below.
Bing Quick Daily Predefined Activities
- Points Per Day: ~110
- Points Per Month: 3,000
In addition to searches, Microsoft Rewards offers a “daily set” of quick activities you can perform to earn 30 or more points per day and a bonus 45 points after a 3 day streak (if you keep your streak going you can earn similar bonuses after additional streak milestones). This bonus adds up to another 15 points a day on average.
However, in addition to the “daily set,” the Microsoft/Bing rewards page in your browser offers a series of other short activities each day, like reviewing the notable history of the day, playing a short trivia game, or researching a topic. There are typically about 50-100 points available each day via such activities.
Check in Daily in the Xbox Android or iOS App
- Points Per Day: 36
- Points Per Month: 1,080
That’s right! Simply opening the Xbox mobile app each day gives you an average of 26 points every 24 hours (in daily streaks of 8, 16, 24, 32, 50 -> 8, 16, …).
Use these links to get the app for Android and iOS.
The mobile app screen capture above also shows several other ways to earn Microsoft Rewards points by simply playing! We’ll get to that in a minute.
The “Tap here to play” option takes you into a game of “Jewel” – a Bejeweled like gem-swiping mobile game that is built right into the mobile app. Finish a single level of Jewel a day to earn an additional 10 points each day.
Check in Daily in the Bing Android or iOS App
- Points Per Day: 15
- Points Per Month: 450
Similar to the Xbox app, you can check in on the Bing mobile app for Android and iOS to earn an average of 15 points every 24 hours (in daily streaks of 5, 5, 10, 10, 15, 15, 50 -> 5, 5, …).
You can then use the Bing mobile app to do some of the mobile searches that earn 5 points a piece we mentioned above.
Read and Email on Outlook Mobile Webpage
- Points Per Day: 19
- Points Per Month: 557
This is another streak based activity. You get 5 points per day and a bonus 100 points after each 7 day streak.
Play Xbox on PC and/or Console
- Points Per Day: 57 on Console, and 57 on PC
- Points Per Month: 1714 x 2 = 3428
As you can see from the screenshot of the rewards area of the Xbox mobile app above, you can also earn points simply by playing an Xbox game on PC (including handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally) or console. It’s 20 points per day on PC and 20 on console. But! If you play 5 days a week, you get a 260-point bonus for both PC and Console. Averaged across 7 days a week, you can earn a total of 57 points a day on both console and PC.
Earn by Playing Game Pass Itself
- Points Per Day: ~100
- Points Per Month: 3040
Xbox Game Pass itself provides Daily, Weekly and Monthly opportunities to earn additional reward points. This is one of the best and easiest ways to earn reward points! Even if you don’t pay attention to these opportunities and aren’t even trying, you can typically earn some significant points a day by simply playing Game Pass titles with your Xbox account.
The current set of Game Pass opportunities available are:
- 20 points – Play a Game Pass game each day
- 240 points – 5 day streak
- 60 points – 6 day streak
- 120 points – 7 day streak
If you take advantage of the above, you can earn 560 points a week or 80 on average a day.
In addition, you can see in the screenshot below, that you also earn bonus points by playing 4 different Game Pass games in month (80 point “monthly 4-pack”) and 8 different Game Pass games in a month (560 point “monthly 8-pack”). This adds up to 640 points a month or 21 points per day.
Note that you can find the current list of Daily, Monthly and Weekly Game Pass rewards that you are working towards in both the Xbox mobile app as well as on the Xbox yourself – simply navigate to your profile by pressing the A button on your gamer-icon at the top left of the Xbox home screen.
Total Amount You can Earn
- Points Per Day: 700+
- Points Per Month: 21100+
- Time Required Per Day: ~15 minutes + normal daily activity
If you follow this guide, you can earn 21,000 Microsoft Reward points per month. That should easily be enough to get you $24 in Xbox credit each month at the auto-redemption rate.
While your own time is certainly more valuable than $0.50 for 5-10 minutes, we note that these activities can typically be done during down-times – like when you are waiting in a checkout line, waiting to pickup your kids or waiting for the oven to preheat, for example. Or, they are things you already do throughout your day – search in your browser and play Xbox on PC and or Console.
Finally, we should mention that as an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriber, you will earn 20 points per dollar spent on purchases in the Microsoft store, including any game purchases outside of your subscription. That’s a little over 2% back. With a few game purchases
Conclusion
So, there you have it. By casually participating in the Microsoft Rewards program (requiring your attention for just a few minutes a day at your convenience), you can earn $24 in Xbox credits each month – which covers most of the cost of Game Pass Ultimate! Even if you earn only half this amount per month based on your daily habits, you’d still be receiving close to a 50% discount on Game Pass Ultimate.
Do you have additional tips for earning even more Microsoft Rewards? Let us know in the comments.
The searches for points on PC usually take a while so here is a quick trick:
Search for the cast of a show, i.e “cast of Merlin” and Bing will bring up a horizontal row of cast members portraits. You can middle mouse click each picture in seconds to open them in a new tab. Each middle mouse click gives you a point so what would otherwise take you like 5-7minuites a day only takes 20s. Once done, I just go back to using Google as always.
Wow. Imagine if someone automated this somehow. Lol
Maximum 162 points per day across all, searches for me in NZ
Or just click on related searches…
If you’re here for getting your xbox game pass ultimate then don’t waste your time, it’s already been withdrawn from Microsoft rewards program for 2 months and you can’t use your points no more to redeem an xbox monthly pass.
The author of this article needs to do a reality check before posting it.
@Rex – Perhaps this is a location issue? It is definitely still a redemption option for us here in the US. The screen shot showing the Xbox GPU redemption option was just from a day ago!
You need to because they put PC gamepass AND gamepass ultimate back on there and you CAN pay for the passes with points.
Nothing worth having is ever free…game pass is struggling to keep their customers happy they are not listening to their customers so game pass is drowning there was a competition or something where a person want an Xbox live card it is a lifetime membership they gave him for free and he declined that reward if you can’t give it away it doesn’t hold value Xbox people are going to PlayStation