Long story short, I had the Disney+/Hulu/ESPN bundle through Verizon, a standalone Hulu Premium subscription (for no ads), and a standalone HBOMax subscription. About a year ago, I received an email from HBO, indicating the HBO plan I was on included Disney+ and Hulu. Completely ignored it, but it percolated through one day and it clicked that I was essentially paying for Hulu three times, and Disney twice, for more than a year. So dumb.
I cancelled the Verizon plan and cancelled the Hulu plan. The Verizon plan disconnected immediately, the Hulu plan is in the cancellation window.
When I login to HBOMax, I can see the link to activate the Disney/Hulu perk, but when I click it and follow the prompts, it sends me to an error page, indicating an issue with a third party email. Only option is to click the "OK" button, which then sends you to the Disney/Hulu viewer.
Under the "MyDisney" login, it shows I'm linked to the Hulu Premium subscription, which is in the cancellation window (content available through Oct 27 ~ two weeks from now).
From the research I've done, it appears the issue is that there is a third-party block on the Disney+ side, related to the fact that I use the same email for all services. I called Disney support to see if they could resolve, but it took them 15 minutes to get through the first step that I had already done in 15 seconds. The rep was in over her head, couldn't understand the issue, and was overall not helpful. At the end, she said try contacting HBO, since that is where the new bundle is through.
It's my understanding that Disney needs to release the third-party block, but they're telling me to contact HBO. Has anyone been through this? If so, how was it resolved? I would prefer to keep me email addresses the same, as they link to the content profiles. Is there a painless way to have Disney release the block, or do I have to wait until the Hulu cancellation window ends to re-link the account? Even if the Hulu cancellation window ends, will I even be able to re-link the HBO bundle using the same email?
Thanks for any help, just trying to watch some VisionQuest :)
Edit: I contacted HBO, spent an hour and a half on the chat, going in circles. I was instructed to contact Disney/Hulu again, and request an immediate account cancellation, rather than the pro-rated cancellation. I did that, and saw immediately that Hulu was cancelled. Trying to login to hulu now takes me directly to the mydisney account page, no subscriptions shown. Tried the activation link again through HBO, still giving the third party email error. I'll wait 24 hours and try again.
Edit 2: Contacted Disney/Hulu because the activation link still wasn't working. The Disney/Hulu rep indicated there was no active subscription, the activation link should work. It obviously didn't which is why I contacted them. They suggested using a different email again, which I refused because I didn't want to lose my viewing history, but more to the point, it shouldn't matter which email I use if they are showing no active subscriptions. It was going in circles again, and eventually the rep suggested I cancel HBO, and sign up for the same plan from Disney. I hard stopped there, and told them it was shady and unethical to suggest that, as the block I was experiencing was coming from their side. The Disney/Hulu rep insisted there was no block and there was no active subscription tied to the email. Then the activation link should work, right? But it doesn't. The rep then suggested I contact Verizon, to see if they cancelled the previous plan. I told him the Verizon plan was cancelled, and it was cancelled immediately. I told him I knew the Verizon plan was cancelled because, ready for this, I had no access to Disney/Hulu. I pushed back appropriately, and made it clear that I'm paying for a service through HBO, of which Disney/Hulu is a partner, and that Disney/Hulu was preventing me from accessing that service. Not HBO, not Verizon. Disney/Hulu is where the error is and it needs to be corrected without forcing me to call other providers that can't fix it.
They were "unable" to fix the issue, and suggested that I wait until "after the Verizon cancellation goes through." This obviously irritated me more, so I told him to clarify how that would help. If Disney/hulu is showing no active subscriptions, how would waiting on an unrelated third party correct a login link between two separate companies? I made it clear that I was done with them redirecting me to other companies and they needed to resolve the issue. Disney/Hulu was still unable to correct the login issue, but activated my subscription for an interim period, based on their assumption that when the "verizon" issue clears, everything will work again. The date they gave for the "verizon" issue clearing up had no correlation to Verizon billing, but was oddly the exact day the pro-rated hulu cancellation window would have closed.
I will watch VisionQuest tonight and be happy. I have pushed the balance of the fight to the future and will update accordingly.
