Xbox live membership? Cheapest way to purchase?

[amy-momofthree]

DS 10 got an Xbox for Christmas and wants to join LIVE so he can play with his friends.
First of all, is it safe? Can strangers find him on there and chat? I'm clueless with this kind of stuff And second, what is the best way (and cheapest) to purchase? Is there a website ? Thanks!!!someplace to purchase it??

 

[bigmochick]

Yes, strangers can chat with him. My 12 year old son was asked to get in my purse for my credit card info! Luckily he knew better. . .

 

[bigmochick]

We bought a game that gave us a few months free. The one we purchased was at Target w/ the red card. So only 5% off but that was as good of a deal we could find after Christmas.

 

[disney4us2002]

Keep a watch out online for the 12 month xbox live gold card. I buy my guys memberships every christmas and I usually end up finding them for $35.99-39.99 rather than the $60 they cost full price. slickdeals.net is a good site to compare prices and the 12 mo live card will make the front page every couple of weeks. Ebay also has lots of offers for the 12 month card in the $50 price range if you don't want to wait for a sale.

 

[amy-momofthree]

Thanks!! I'll keep a look out on slickdeals! We have the one month free so I guess that's good to try it out! And to see if any "strangers" find him.

 

[teller80]

from slickdeals, looks like a 12 month subscription will be $35 soon:

http://slickdeals.net/f/5809152-Not-Live-Tigerdirect-12-Month-Xbox-360-Live-Gold-Subscription-Card-B-M-Possible-Online-35

 

[Aurora D]

My DS14 has been playing Live for about 2 years. Yes, he does talk to strangers. He is only allowed to play with his door open so I can hear the conversation going on. He has become "friends" with a few boys his age in Pa, Oh and Canada. They join the same "party" every time they play. As long as you monitor it he should be fine.
The only problem I have with it is DS spends so much time with these online friends he doesn't socialize outside of school.

 

[a1tinkfans]

instead of providing your credit card info (for the year, and then they can upgrade and buy Xtras ) . You can also buy the card at the convenience store (we have 7-11) and you need not provide ANY cc info. In addition there are settings to BLOCK info for younger kids. Its a good thing! and until they turn 18 (a dob is needed)... even if not accurate... they cannot change it.

 

[Pikezh638]

Newegg has some cards on sell at random times, I got them at christmas highly discounted.

They have 3 month cards 10% off right now.

 

[DawnM]

Around Christmas time they get pretty cheap. Slickdeals and FattWallet.com both had $35 cards.

I have 3 kids and we get the 4 person family plan for $99. There are no discounts on those as you have to buy it directly from Microsoft, but I guess ultimately it is still much cheaper than buying 3 separate memberships, and DH now has the 4th.

I still haven't figured out how to stream Netflix or Amazon through it.

 

[angierae]

There are ways to set up an xbox membership so that they can only talk to people they already know, but I'm not sure how to do it. I know my ex-husband had my daughter's set up that way for a long time (she's 18 now.)

 

[Hardy]

I just set up my sons, he will automatically get the kid setting which restricts a lot, you can also customize it. So he will not have free reign of live.

Also for the pp, to stream Netflix and Hulu etc, you need to go to the app section and download the app for each of these and then set it up with your login.

 

[cjnix29]

Looking for this too. Ours is about to expire, and I could kick myself for not getting it cheap around Christmas. The TigerDirect doesn't seem to be live yet. So if someone sees it....please post!

 

[JB2K]

DS 10 got an Xbox for Christmas and wants to join LIVE so he can play with his friends.
First of all, is it safe? Can strangers find him on there and chat? I'm clueless with this kind of stuff And second, what is the best way (and cheapest) to purchase? Is there a website ? Thanks!!!someplace to purchase it??

You have a couple of money-saving options:

Target - the "XBox Gold" prepaid cards (good for a year, I believe) go on sale from time to time (a few bucks off) -- got their Credit or Debit card? You can take another 5% off

Amazon.com - if you live in a state where Amazon does not collect sales tax, you may find some savings there, too...

 

[amy-momofthree]

Thanks again! I'll check out slickdeals for the 12 month deal. I ended up buying a 3 month membership (online code) from amazon. It was $20. His friend wanted him to play online Saturday night, so we had to get something so they could play. I will have to check out the settings. I definitely want to restrict his activities to friends only. Anyone know how to do this? I'm clueless with electronics

 

[dhuba]

Tigerdirect sold through Ebay has a 12 month gold membership for 34.99 today.

 

[shoney]

Tigerdirect sold through Ebay has a 12 month gold membership for 34.99 today.

thank you...just bought it!

 

[cjnix29]

me too, thanks!

 

[Disney Addicted]

My husband & I purchased an xBox 360 as a family christmas gift this year as well. Because there are 4 of us and we knew ahead of time that we would want to connect with friends, we purchased the Family Plan as well. The xBox came with a 6-month free live membership that we are going to set up as a "friend" account. This way whenever the kids have a friend over, that friend can use that account. The family membership was a whole lot cheaper than purchasing 4 different live accounts!

I found setting up the accounts confusing but finally got through it. As for the chatting with strangers, our son is only 8. A friend walked me through setting the restrictions so he can only play with people we know & have set up as friends. AND if he wants to add a friend or accept a friend request - his xbox account needs permission from MY account (being the primary account).

I'm afraid I could not walk you through it as I'm not quite sure how we set it up. But xBox has GREAT tech support FREE! You can log into your xBox account (I did this through the computer) and request a "call back". Within a certain time frame, tech support will phone you and help resolve your issues with the xBox. I must have requested at least 1/2 dozen call backs over Christmas holidays!

Did you figure out Netflix? If not, I recommend asking for a callback and tech support will walk you through it.

 

[sevenx7]

Here's another little tip. If you have 2 1 year codes you can add them and convert it to 1 family plan. Just a quick tip if you get them for 35.00 then the years only 70.00 for 4 accounts.