I think if he'd had purchased the MSFS License for his free Standard Edition through Game pass than he get's to keep it. The license cost was just the amount of the Standard game version, maybe a little more I'm not sure.   Note: The $1.00/month trial Game Pass version was free of the license, ie, it was include with GP when he tried the $1.00 Promo/trial to join so long as you kept making monthly payment and after that trial ended it would go back up to the normal sub price of $9.00/month....The Free to play MSFS on GP trial was only for the Standard Edition.  If you wanted to own it I believe it was $50-55 I think for being a game pass subscriber which it also I believe included the license to own the game.    

if he was going to un-sub to Game Pass. Then that is a different animal!    He had to make sure to purchase the License first,(Standard MSFS) then purchase the Deluxe package or go straight to the Premium package for more $$ while still on the MS sub.    So if he jumped ahead and upgraded to Deluxe or Premium during the trial without purchasing the main game (Standard Ed) and was considering not keeping GP then that's where the confusion lies. That's what I understood from talking to MS customer Service. 

I went through the same shenanigan's myself but I made sure to call MS before I purchased the Premium version that was on sale for $95. which included everything. I  I made sure that it said on my MS account .. "Own/Purchases"  =  License Package(MSFS Standard Ed), Deluxe Package and Premium Package   

Edited March 11, 20224 yr by F1Fan

22 minutes ago, Bdub22 said:

I bought MSFS through MS Store and have had zero problems with anything. Updates are quick and simple. 

guess you were  one of  the lucky  ones  there  are  many that  have  had  many issues  trying  to update

14 minutes ago, pete_auau said:

guess you were  one of  the lucky  ones  there  are  many that  have  had  many issues  trying  to update

 

two of them.

Also had the gamepass in the beginning and was then able to buy the correct versions. Without re-installing MSFS.

Can't remember that it was that difficult.

1) I took out a $1 membership to gamepass. 

2) Tried it out for a month. 

3) Cancelled my gamepass subscription

4) Bought the premium deluxe version

Result: 0 problems

Not really dishonest, just perhaps not as clear as it could be, although a good read of the EULA would almost certainly have cleared that up and might have been a good idea before throwing any extra cash at the thing and being sure of any potential pitfalls. Perhaps MS could put an alert at the point of purchase, mentioning that this would be the case, but it's not really dishonest if they don't, more a case of caveat emptor.

I'm sure most of us who have been using sims and games for years have fallen foul of some things like this at some point in the past, for example, I bought a Steam version of Active Sky once, then found to my dismay that because of the way the serial numbers registered on Steam, it could not be tracked by the developer to allow the upgrade loyalty discount on subsequent versions purchased via their website, necessitating a full-price none-discounted new purchase. This, and the fact that some FSX Steam versions of products were a bit chopped down in comparison to their non-Steam counterparts, is in fact why I avoided buying MSFS on Steam and just went for the pre-order super-duper version via the MSFS store. I can't say I'm a fan of how the patches are implemented for it when owning the MS Store version, but other than that, it has been pretty straightforward.

 

Edited March 11, 20224 yr by Chock

it would be too easy to buy the game pass for 1 usd + the upgrade for 60 usd to have what others have bought for 120 usd

Well, some folks wanted to have their cake (a one dollar gamepass subscription) and eat it, too (keep what you bought via the subscription).

Predictably, this approach failed. 

Nothing dishonest about it.

You had the Standard version with the subscription. You bought a perpetual license for the upgrade from Standard to Premium Deluxe, which clearly requires the Standard version to work. A perpetual license for Premium Deluxe is $120+, not $60. You then terminated your license for the Standard version, a prerequisite for the Upgrade.

You'll either have to reactivate the game pass or buy the Standard version outright.

Edited March 11, 20224 yr by JimmiG

2 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

Well, some folks wanted to have their cake (a one dollar gamepass subscription) and eat it, too (keep what you bought via the subscription).

Predictably, this approach failed. 

When all they had to do was cancel and wait for it to go on sale. It did a few weeks later and I was like WOW!

BTW, I see the marketplace and store as the same vendor.

5 hours ago, pete_auau said:

guess you were  one of  the lucky  ones  there  are  many that  have  had  many issues  trying  to update

And there are probably many more without any problems whatsoever. Those with no problems usually keep quiet about it.
I've had no issues with the Store version, the only issues I had where self-inflicted like joining a beta, and even those were just a nuisance really.

So the "answer" from the OP is to go to a 3rd party site and buy the "keys" from a 3rd party site outside MS or Steam to save a few $$$  

That tells me the OP is only concerned with getting things as cheap as possible, even trying to find loopholes to do so leaving me with the conclusion they tried to do the same thing here.  Find the cheapest way possible to play the system and it backfired.  

Perhaps if the same effort had been put in to reading requirements as finding a bargain the OP would have had a better understanding. 
I also don't see any correlation between this and the "340 credits" we were supposed to Google which seems to be people asking how to buy add-ons not the sim itself.  

So what's dishonest?  You can either re-instate your subscription or buy it outright, clearly you had the base via the subscription then purchased the upgrade that required the base (via your subscription) then you cancelled your subscription and still expected entitlement to content included with the subscription (Base version)  You never "bought" the base version.  .  

iRacing is a great example of a simlar model.  You pay a subscription to use the service.  You then "purchase" your add-ons however if you stop paying the subscription to the service you obviously can't use the add-ons you "purchased"  Difference is MS offered a way to buy the base version outright which iRacing does not.  

 

 

The OP's problem may seem unusual and unfair to many less experienced or less knowledgeable users but what he describes has been the way "base license / upgrade" has worked in the software business since I began my systems software career over 50-years ago. 

There have been countless iterations of the base+upgrade licensing model and they all work, more or less, as described by the OP.

I am sure Microsoft / GamePass could have made it far easier to know that when purchasing the upgrade it would be necessary to continue paying the subscription fee but it was certainly not dishonest or even mis-leading. 

Looking at it from MS/GamePass perspective: 

Did he really think he could get a full copy of Deluxe Premium for only $60 when the retail price of the full copy was over twice that?

Did he think he could bypass paying in full for the base which cost $60 and an upgrade from that paid for base would have been $90?

Edited March 11, 20224 yr by TacomaSailor

I think we’ve sorted it out and the OP has a better understanding of what happened. Going to lock it before it turns ugly.