auto-renewal
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Xbox.com update is live, features Beacons and local Auto Renewal options
As expected, the new update to Xbox.com, featuring the new Beacons functionality to mark certain games you'd like to play with friends, has gone live and is now available to anyone with an Xbox Live account. The update looks clean and purty, and features not only those Beacons, but revamped friends and messaging functionality, and a nice quick interface for browsing through games and achievements. And there's something else new on the page: The option, as seen above, to cancel your autorenewal subscription right there on the site. Previously, doing so was more of a pain, and you had to leave the site to go to Microsoft.com and do it, but now you can click through to your account and change any subscription settings right through Xbox.com. A note of warning, however: Microsoft will put a few special deals in front of you as you click through, including a discount on the subscription designed to keep you around. But that's understandable -- someone's got to pay for the design money that went into this update. And speaking of update, where's that console dashboard update we were promised? Soon.
The more you know: How to turn off automatic Xbox Live renewal
By default, Xbox Live is set to automatically renew Gold subscriptions when a user's current membership expires, but not everyone is down with a surprise credit card charge -- especially if they're rocking a parent's plastic. Thankfully, Xbox Live's Major Nelson has posted a quick guide to help users disable the automatic renewal process. The steps are simple: Sign in to Xbox.com and go to the My Account section. Click the Membership level link on the left. You'll see a page that has your Membership level, and the end date. Under that, you'll see your "Automatic Renewal" status (as shown above). If it reads ON, users can click the ON link and be brought to a page to turn the feature OFF. If you'd like to change the setting to ON or OFF -- Click the link, make your selection, then click next. You'll be returned to your Membership level page, where you can confirm your selection That's it. Easy as warm apple pie -- now excuse us, we just got hungry. [Thanks, Juan]
