Microsoft may owe you money for 36-hour Outlook outage, here is how to claim it

Resumen detallado

Microsoft's 36-hour Outlook and Teams outage may leave some businesses eligible for service credits. Here's who can claim compensation and how to apply through the Microsoft 365 Admin Centre.

Microsoft’s services are functioning properly after more than 36 hours of server disruption. This outage has caused trouble for millions of individuals and businesses, especially one who relies on Microsoft 365 for emails and everyday work. Now, are you eligible for a service credit for the time these services were unavailable? Know that Microsoft may not automatically hand you the money as compensation, but there are some processes you can follow to claim it.

For those who possess Microsoft's business subscriptions, it comes with a Service Level Agreement (SLA), which promises a certain level of uptime for its online services. For Microsoft 365, the company promises 99.9 per cent monthly uptime for services such as Exchange Online and Outlook. If Microsoft fails to meet this promise, eligible business customers can claim service credits.

The compensation, however, is not a direct cash refund. Instead, Microsoft offers credits that can reduce your future subscription bills. Depending on the extent of the downtime, the credit can be 25 per cent, 50 per cent or even 100 per cent of the applicable service charge.

Microsoft calculates downtime using something called user-minutes. In simple terms, it considers how long a service remained unavailable and how many users were affected. It also calculates credits separately for individual services, meaning an Outlook outage does not automatically qualify your entire Microsoft 365 subscription for compensation.

However, here comes an important distinction. These credits are meant for eligible business customers, including those using Microsoft 365 Business subscriptions, Exchange Online or Teams Premium. If you are an individual user with Microsoft 365 Personal or have opted for Family plans, then it may not be covered by the business SLA.

You can still request a refund, but the decision would be in Microsoft's hands, and Microsoft will decide whether to offer one at its discretion.

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