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The American Express Platinum card comes with a $20/month “digital entertainment” credit that can be used for Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu, the Disney Bundle, The New York Times, Peacock, and The Wall Street Journal. Probably the most popular way to use it is with the Disney Bundle, which includes Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu.
Last October, Disney raised the price of its bundles, putting the combination of all three services without ads above that $20/month threshold.
Yesterday, the company announced that it will be raising prices again this October, however this time the increase is primarily focused on the individual streaming channels, which are all going up by $1-$2 per month. The only bundle increase is on the Basic Duo, which is Disney+ and Hulu, both with adds.
The new pricing will be in effect starting October 17th.
What’s Changing
Starting October 17th, the following pricing will take effect for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ subscriptions:
- Hulu with ads – $9.99/month, up from $7.99/month
- Hulu Premium – $18.99/month, up from $17.99/month
- Disney+ with ads – $9.99/month, up from $7.99/month
- Disney+ Premium – $15.99/month, up from $13.99/month
- ESPN+ (with ads) – $11.99/month, up from $10.99/month
- Disney Bundle Duo with ads – $10.99/month, up from $9.99/month: Disney+ (with Ads) and Hulu (with Ads).
- Disney Bundle Duo Premium – $19.99/month (no change): Disney+ (No Ads) and Hulu (No Ads).
Quick Thoughts
After last year’s changes, many Amex Platinum cardholders changed their Disney Bundle to the Premium Duo, since it fit nicely into the $20/month credit. Luckily, that remains unaffected in this year’s increases.
With the new pricing, folks who were only doing Disney+ or Hulu Premium (perhaps combined with one of the news options) have less incentive to do so, since the Duo bundle without ads is only $4 more than Disney by itself and $1 more than Hulu Premium.
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The last few years Hulu has been offering $1.99 or $0.99 per month for 12 months during Black Friday. You can do an add on in the Hulu account from that price.
I sub to these types of streaming services for, maybe, one month then move on. I really don’t find that much stuff on them that I want to watch (and I hate re-watching stuff).
But, apparently, Dis+ just posted a profit…now we know why.
Years back used to rotate thru Hulu and Netflix (after Hulu started charging and Netflix had moved heavily to streaming).
Funny thing is Hulu and Amazon used to be the main platforms that I watched and that was mainly from Laptop on a large LCD TV. Then went to Roku in 2016 for a few years – till I got a Firestick then FireTV.
That said I very much dislike Hulu UI and have for years probably why I watch Hulu so little any more and Netflix has so many series that they drop after 3-4 seasons and leave you hanging.
But I get Hulu ad free credit on Plat and T-mo ad free is only about $6 a month.
But its seems I mainly watch Paramount+ and Amazon programming the most – Disney occasionally for Star Wars programs. Also subscribe to Starz its about $3/mo on the annual plan.
Nice thing is it seems that Paramount+ always has a promotion running either on a CC or for a month free promo.
I
For those of us trying to capture the $84/year Amex Blue Cash Preferred streaming credit, we need a minimum of $9.99/month to trigger it. That used to require a bundle but now we can trigger it with just a single package.
Who cares about anything from Disney. Disgusting…
You perhaps, since you bothered to visit the article and comment?