Will an Xbox Live Gold sub from the US work here?

[EJG1980]

My Xbox Live Gold subscription is going to run out soon and I was thinking of getting an renewal code from US eBay, what with the fantastic £/$ exchange rate at the mo (thank God we didn't go into the Euro ).

Problem is a lot of the subs on there seem to be for new accounts only, so you can only use the code if you create a brand new account. Has anyone bought a Gold sub from US eBay recently and successfully used it on their existing account?

Otherwise, anybody know of somewhere here I could get a yearly sub for less than the £39.99 Microsoft charge? Cheers in advance for any help.

[tom-nook]

As I understand it Live codes are region free but Marketplace Points codes aren't. Therefore, you can use a US Live code on any 360 but a US points code will only work on an ntsc-u console. I bought one from ebay a year or so back & it worked fine on my PAL 360.

That was certainly still the case 3-4 months back when I sold 360 and afaik things haven't changed since. Never heard of the new accounts only thing though....possibly some kind of promotional code bundled with new consoles?

Edit: according to the FAQ in this sellers listing the 'new accounts' only thing may suggest someone trying to pull a fast one by palming off a 1 month trial code as a 12 month sub. Don't know if his info is accurate but it would also appear that a US sub may no longer work in Europe (unless you're account has a US address).

http://cgi.ebay.com/XBOX-360-Live-12-1-Gold-card-Same-day-Shipping_W0QQitemZ320106848041QQihZ011QQcategoryZ122517QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[EJG1980]

Cheers for the info, I was wondering if things had changed cos I'd quite a few listings on eBay.com which mentioned the fact that you needed a US address for the code to work. I probably won't risk it now that the situation seems less clear cut as to whether a sub will work here or not, I can get one from game or somewhere like that and save a fiver at least

[chaoticjelly]

I was looking at those xbox live gold subs on US ebay.com

I asked the seller if they would work over here to which he replied they would

However the postage they were charging was massive for just a piece of paper

I ended up buying the pack that comes with the gold sub 12 month and a live camera.

Also to my surprise, it came with a wired headset, 200 live arcade points card, and the full games of uno and robotron 2084

The RRP was 59.99 HMV were selling it for 49.99 and I got a fiver off student discount so it cost me 45 in all for all of that, quite a bargain I thought.

[MJ]

I ended up buying the pack that comes with the gold sub 12 month and a live camera.

Also to my surprise, it came with a wired headset, 200 live arcade points card, and the full games of uno and robotron 2084

The RRP was 59.99 HMV were selling it for 49.99 and I got a fiver off student discount so it cost me 45 in all for all of that, quite a bargain I thought.

I got one of these packs for ?45 too just after Christmas and I ended up selling the headset for around ?10 which recouped some of the money.