MobileMe Alias to Full Account

[aresinferno]

Hello MacRumors Members,

My name is Daniel. Last year I created a trial MobileMe account with my online name as the username. This was a big mistake.

I created an alias using my real name. This was my second mistake. This alias was the name I wished to use as the account name. However because I had added it to the account, I could not create another account and use the name after my subscription expires.

I thought to myself what do I do? Do I continue using the current username and not renew the account, which would then lose me access to the alias email?

Well today, 4 days from my subscription ending, I contacted apple support. I mentioned how I had seen a thread on the apple discussion boards about a user having their alias transferred to an email only account. I did not make this up as I had actually read it earlier this month. As soon as I brought this up, the person who I was talking to said that they could in fact change my alias to an email account.

After confirming my identity, and deleting my alias, it has been converted in to a trial account with 60 days left rather than an email only account. Of course I plan to upgrade as soon as possible to get the missing features not present in a trial account.

Just thought that some of you who have the same problem would like to know that it can be resolved. The only problem of course is then losing the original username unless adding it to a family account. However I have always used GMail for that account.

The support member who I spoke to was excellent and I have even decided to get a chat transcript sent to me.

 

[bluegecko7]

i'm currently on a mobileme trial that ends in a weeks time. i do like it but the main reason i want it is for the simple email address.

at the moment i plan on buying a code online to upgrade to full sub, but the email address is the only thing i want really.

are you saying it's possible if i dont renew when my trial runs out there's a way i can keep the email address without having to buy a subscription? or do i just need to give apple a ring to have this done?

 

[aresinferno]

are you saying it's possible if i dont renew when my trial runs out there's a way i can keep the email address without having to buy a subscription? or do i just need to give apple a ring to have this done?

Unfortunately not. E-Mail only accounts are not supported anymore. If you want the email account but not anything else, you would still have to pay the full price.

 

[hoopyfitz]

I had this exact same problem...it was complicated but i figured it out


I converted my regular account to a family account, and made my alias one of the parts of the family account (this only cost about 4 dollars to do, because I only had a week left in my subscription, and the cost is prorated, so i only really made a family account for the last week of my subscription. Then, I logged into one of the new family accounts (the one I transferred my alias to) and upgraded that to a full account (you have to pay full price but get the full year)

Then I let the original account that I converted into the family account expire, leaving only my alias converted to full account left.

This worked for me, I think all options are still able to be done. Sorry its so complicated, let me know if you need any more help

 

[aresinferno]

I had this exact same problem...it was complicated but i figured it out


I converted my regular account to a family account, and made my alias one of the parts of the family account (this only cost about 4 dollars to do, because I only had a week left in my subscription, and the cost is prorated, so i only really made a family account for the last week of my subscription. Then, I logged into one of the new family accounts (the one I transferred my alias to) and upgraded that to a full account (you have to pay full price but get the full year)

Then I let the original account that I converted into the family account expire, leaving only my alias converted to full account left.

This worked for me, I think all options are still able to be done. Sorry its so complicated, let me know if you need any more help

If you read my post, you will find that I got someone from apple to sort the problem so I was really offering a solution. However after hearing that it cost so little to upgrade to a family account at the end of the subscription, I wish I had just done that rather than spend 50 minutes chatting with an apple employee who has most helpful. I did only have 3 days left afterall.