Peacock raises prices, but you can still get a deal
Jared Newman | 
Remember back in 2020 when Peacock cost just $5 per month? Those days are long gone.
With a new round of price hikes, Peacock Premium now costs $13 per month or $130 per year, up from $11 or $110 per year previously. The Premium Plus now costs $20 per month or $200 per year, up from $17 per month or $170 per year. Peacock’s “Select” tier, which excludes live sports, movies, and Peacock originals, now costs $9 per month or $90 per year, up from $8 per month or $80 per year.
But just because NBCUniversal wants more money for Peacock doesn’t mean you have to pay it. A spokesperson confirmed that while Peacock’s standalone prices are going up, you can still bundle it with other services for less. Several of these combos are less expensive than paying for Peacock by itself.
Here’s how to get a deal on Peacock after the latest price hikes, and possibly even pay less than you were before.
Weekly rewind
Confusion with Spectrum’s free Amazon Prime offer: This week, some reports emerged claiming that Spectrum Internet customers can now get Amazon Prime at no extra charge. Spectrum’s own website implies that Spectrum customers “on any Internet tier” are eligible, even if they’re Prime subscribers already.
But when I tried to redeem this offer myself, I kept getting a “Service Unavailable” error. This thread on Slickdeals is full of folks who are running into the same problem, though some claim to have redeemed it successfully.
What gives? A spokesman tells me that only customers who qualify for Spectrum’s 50 Mbps Internet Assist plan can get this offer. This includes households that pay for faster speeds but would meet Spectrum’s eligibility requirements for the lower-cost plan. If you want to give it a shot, sign into your Spectrum account and head to the activation page, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work.
DirecTV’s Netflix non-deal: Speaking of questionable freebies, DirecTV is offering 12 months of Netflix (or a $9 per month discount on ad-free plans) for new customers who sign up for one of its Genre Packs, but only if you also rent a Gemini streaming box for $10 per month.
So, if you otherwise planned to use your own smart TV or streaming device with the free DirecTV app, this deal will end up costing you money, especially after the free year of Netflix runs out. It’s only worth considering if you’re interested in the cable box experience that Gemini provides.
Fire TV price hikes: I haven’t seen this reported anywhere else yet, but Amazon has quietly raised prices for all of its Fire TV devices. The new prices are $35 for the Fire TV Stick HD ($5 increase), $50 for the 4K model ($10 increase), $70 for the 4K Plus ($20 increase), $85 for the 4K Max ($20 increase), and $200 for the Fire TV Cube ($60 increase).
As with Roku’s round of price hikes last month—and similar price hikes on a slew of consumer electronics in recent months—you can blame AI data centers.
More catch-up
- MS Now plans an $8 per month subscription service, but it won’t include the actual cable channel.
- Amazon’s next-gen Alexa+ voice assistant is now free on Fire TV devices. (It was already free for Prime members; I can’t imagine many others were paying $20 per month for it.)
- Breezeline, the 8th-largest U.S. internet provider, starts selling DirecTV bundles at a $5 per month discount. It discontinued its own TV service a few years ago.
- DirecTV expands its multiview features with canned combinations of sports channels. You still can’t pick exactly which ones.
- Here’s a rumor roundup for the next Apple TV 4K, which might arrive this fall.
Save more money
This part of the newsletter has some affiliate links, which earn me a commission if you wind up buying or subscribing to something.
It’s back: Get two months of Paramount+ Premium for $1 per month with promo code P2MCS26PREM. As before, the offer is for new and eligible returning subscribers on the ad-free Premium tier. You can’t tack it onto an active subscription, and you must redeem it through the Paramount+ website, not the app.
If you’d rather commit to a year, SAVEANNUAL50 still works to get half-off the first year of Premium instead.
Other notable deals:
- New YouTube Premium subscribers can get up to three months free via Best Buy. (This claims to require a paid Best Buy subscription, but some folks report success without one.)
- Fox One is still $99 for the first year.
- Despite the aforementioned price hikes, you can still get a Fire TV Stick 4K Plus for $25 with code STREAM4K.
See more up-to-date deals on the Cord Cutter Weekly website.
How to actually use a password manager
Last week, I asked my discussion forum members to tell me about their biggest tech annoyances, and I’m not surprised at how often password managers came up.
Password managers are supposed to make your online accounts more secure and easier to access, but they can also cause problems. Getting started can be a hassle, and it’s too easy to end up with separate lists of passwords in different places. The arrival of passkeys only adds more complication.
Over at the Advisorator website, I’ve completely rewritten my guide to using a password manager with these frustrations in mind. I think it’ll bring clarity to where your passwords are stored now, how to get them all into one place, and how to get the password manager habit to stick if you’re not using one already.
My guide to password management is exclusively for Advisorator’s paying members, who get my full Tuesday tech advice newsletter and all my online tech tutorials. You can still get 25% off your first year for a limited time. Learn more here.
Thanks for reading!
Got cord cutting questions for me? Reply to this email and I’ll do my best to answer.
Until next week,
Jared