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DirecTV Customers Told They’re Losing ‘HBO For Life’ (Free Max) Benefit, But It’s Probably An Error

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It looks like a number of DirecTV customers are suddenly being advised that they’ve lost access to their ‘HBO for Life’ benefit. Basically, they’ve lost access to their free Max subscription.

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While no longer available to new customers, AT&T previously offered customers the option to get HBO for free for life when signing up to certain services. Well, for as long as they remained a customer and, crucially, as long as they didn’t make any changes to their service(s).

Once HBO transitioned to HBO Max, and then again to Max, those legacy subscribers were also transitioned over, with their HBO for Life subscription basically becoming a ‘Max for Life’ subscription.

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As mentioned, making any change could result in the HBO for Life promotion being removed as a benefit, and that appears to be exactly what legacy customers are now being advised of by email.

DirecTV appears to be in the process of emailing customers to confirm that they made a change to the service and that this change has resulted in them losing access to Max. In one Reddit post, a number of users report receiving the email today, even though they haven’t made any changes to their services.

Right now, it currently remains unclear whether those affected actually are losing access to their free Max subscription. While the number of user reports we’ve seen today would highly suggest that this is an error, it still might be worth affected customers reaching out to confirm that no changes were made to their plan, and they are not losing access to their free Max benefit.

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John Finn

By John Finn

John started Streaming Better to help consumers navigate the live TV streaming and subscription service landscape. John has been editing and writing about technology and streaming for online publications since 2014, and believes the best streaming approach is to rotate between services as needed.

John's preferred live TV streaming service right now is YouTube TV although he does tend to switch live TV services multiple times each year to keep up to date with their changes. Outside of live TV, John also actively streams HBO Max (for the shows), Peacock (for Premier League), and Paramount Plus (for Champion's League). However, John is also currently subscribed to Apple TV+, Discovery+, Hulu, Starz, Showtime, and Shudder.

Contact John via email at john@streamingbetter.com or say hi on Twitter

1 reply on “DirecTV Customers Told They’re Losing ‘HBO For Life’ (Free Max) Benefit, But It’s Probably An Error”

Initiated a chat session with Directv Stream. I made contact when my MAX access disappeared. While waiting, I checked my profile “Billing and Payments -& My Activity” and found this:
” Sep. 14, 2023
Subscription changes –
You removed: Max™ Included with AT&T Unlimited”.
I made no changes to my plan. When I asked the Directv rep. about this change, they said ATT Wireless was responsible. I don’t have any ATT Wireless services. They then said they could restore the service for an additional $15.99 a month. I was an early subscriber grandfathered into what is now a plan that is not available to new subscribers. My initial rate ($30+) rose to $48.25 in January 2022. My current rate was $64.34 including:
“Live a Little -$25.00 (minus)
Live a Little $84.99
Max™ Included with AT&T Unlimited $0.00
20 Hours of Cloud DVR $0.00
3 Streams $0.00
Nick Jr $0.00
Taxes and Surcharges $4.35
The net of all of this is that they dropped MAX from my plan: they initiated the subscription change that removed MAX, not me; when confronted with the obvious question “When did I make the change” they immediately changed the subject and said that ATT Wireless dropped the service, ?????, (I don’t have any ATT Wireless Services); they wanted to add MAX back if I agreed to an additional $15.99 per month. In a nutshell, I lost access to the free MAX benefit.

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