How to change subscription plan to Microsoft 365 Classic to opt out of AI and avoid the price increase (in New Zealand)

Just spent an hour (hopefully) getting this resolved myself

Because I am on automatic renewal payment, the option to change to 365 classic is NOT available. The solution seems to be "turn off automatic billing" in your microsoft account under manage my account. When my next billing (my case - May 2025) is meant to occur. It will promote me for payment and then I will get an option to change to 365 classic rather than 365 personal. At present it is not possible to change as I have prepaid 365 personal (with the intrusive copilot AI) until May

That is a summary of effectively an hour with Customer Service (online only). The person I communicated with was very good. But it took an hour to get that information (or at least what I believe is the issue)

Facing the very same issues I tried reaching out to support as outlined above. Support helpfully directed me to the Sales Team... for a personal account. Twice. They later also suggested Family Classic added AI at an increased cost over the normal Family subscription (???), and managed to get my expiry date blindingly wrong.

10/10 support folks. Tempted to just actually cancel at this rate, it was already shady practice to force a $50AUD price hike on customers without informing them an option exists to opt out of the entirely unnecessary function creating the increase. Further hiding the opt out behind layer upon layer of burdensome contact lines is fantastic, love your work.

Just received the same email, in Australia. Followed the same process, and the only option after cancel was to choose a monthly payment plan but actually increases the yearly cost by a further AUD$37. Would love to choose "Family 365 Classic" and do away with the AI features I have no need for. My next step will be to just cancel and go fully Google Docs or Open Office.

Steps to disable auto payment

Go to the Microsoft 365 web page https://www.microsoft.com/en-nz/microsoft-365. (If you are not in New Zealand, substitute your language-country code for 'en-nz' in the URL.)

Log in to your Microsoft account if you are not already logged in.

Click on your account name or icon (top left on the Microsoft 365 web page). A drop-down menu should be shown.

On the drop-down menu, click the 'My Microsoft Account' link. After a few seconds, the Account page should be shown.

On the Account page, under the Subscriptions header, you should see 'Microsoft 365 Family' or 'Microsoft 365 Personal'.

The rest of these instructions may not be exactly what you will see, as I've already turned off recurrent billing and can no longer see this.

Click on the link immediately below 'Microsoft 365 Family' or 'Microsoft 365 Personal' that says something like 'Turn off recurrent billing' or perhaps 'Manage account'. You should now be on a page where you can actually turn off recurrent billing.

Ignore the button with the scary caption warning you that you will lose your benefits. You will not lose your benefits unless you don't make arrangements to pay (having changed to a Classic subscription) when Microsoft emails you that payment is due.

Instead, click the button to the right of that one. I think that button also has a rather misleading caption, something like 'Go ahead and cancel'. You will not be cancelling your subscription, just turning off recurring billing.

To check that it worked, you can then head back to the Account page. The link below 'Microsoft 365 Family' or 'Microsoft 365 Personal' should now read 'Turn on recurring billing'. And Microsoft should shortly email you a confirmation of the change.