Critters casual – How to get premium account cheaply

Now that you might have chosen to skip the very long TP grind to 100 by going to get premium account access.  In this guide we’ll show you some cheap ways to your account set to premium. Both kind of premium account are the same in their base level. Though if you get to SP through VIP you will retain some additional bonuses you get when going VIP. As described in a previous guide. If you plan on playing lotro longterm that is the one with the most bang for the buck.

But as lotro is a long standing MMO with plenty of different modes of paying for it during the years.  There are plenty of options to choose from. The cheapest way is to get a cd-key code from a 3rd party for Steely dawn DLC. But there are other options that can work in your favour if they contain something you’d really want (a Runekeeper from a boxed set of Moria expansion).

For reference if you’re unfamiliar with the used acronyms

  1. Baby Premium (upgrade from F2P):  “BP”has spent real world money on the game, but has never been VIP
  2. Super Premium (downgrade from VIP): “SP” was once VIP, but canceled subscription.
  3. VIP: holds a subscription for the game.

There are 2 options available to spend real world money on lotro to get BP.

  1. Buy Turbine points straight from the store with the cheapest option being 5,99 euro for 700 TP’s
  2. Buy some form of in-game expansion through a retail store or website. Ranging from a dollar though plenty more.

Buy Turbine points (baseline)

As for option 1 is the quickest and easiest option. But it surely isn’t the cheapest option available. There are options available in 2 that are about the same or slighty less for free (if you take the TP’s you get from them).

Small starter sets 

In all the years that lotro existed there have small promotional items that give premium. They contain a small batch of TP’s and usually some cosmetics, mount and other boost items. These can be found usually by throwing their names in google and see if there are any for sale. They are older items available through 3rd party websites. But the codes are still valid.

  • Lotro starter pack –  is still being used as a promotional item by Turbine. The last giveaway was nearly 1,5 years ago. But there might be some floating around. Don’t pay for these.
    • Riding trait and a horse (-edit: This won’t give you premium account)
  • The Samwise Gamgee’s Starter Pack – Not available anymore. Cause it won’t give the fully described bonus in inventory bonus anymore. https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?597143-Error-trying-to-purchase-Samwise-Gamgee-s-Starter-Pack&p=7531291#post7531291

Steely dawn DLC  

The steely dawn starter set is worth it own paragraph. This starter pack Steam DLC costs 20$ from the store, but 1-2$ around the internet due it being part of a humble bundle deal. Dont buy this for its full retail price. Go for the “free” option. It contains nearly 1100 TP’s worth of stuff you will buy eventually. To get it for the cheap price you will have to go through a 3rd party website.

Use your common sense and don’t give account information out etc. This is a cd-key sale that some party got from the Humble Bundle sale a few years back.

  • Cosmetic armour set
  • 500 tp for 2 $ (free tp’s one time per account)
  • Evendim quest pack! free 595 tp’s

Old boxed Lotro

In the ruins of you’re downtown shopping centre treasures might still await. Like lots of games you had to have a physical manifestation of the bits that you’re playing. Lotro came on cd/dvd media. These boxes contain expansions and base lotro called Shadows of Angmar. They contain cd-keys that give you a bundle of questpacks and area’s like Moria. Online sales usually come at prices that arent really competitive with the above option. But sometimes you’d still find and old forgotten box or item for a few euro’s or dollars.

Carefull with boxed versions labelled as EU/Codemaster. They (edit) won’t work on Turbines site.

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8 comments

  1. Steve Schaper /

    I’ve gotten expansions for my non-premium account and I did not get the premium benefits.

  2. Nuvielle /

    There is actually a completely F2P method of upgrading a F2P acct to Premium status, which is to grind tp and buy the 4 main expansions (Moria, RoI, RoR, Helms Deep).

    • Going full f2p by grinding TP was discussed in the first guide. But this series focusses mostly on the the other options. Not that much advice that could be given there besides which area’s to focus on (plans for future guides).

  3. To answer a couple of the uncertainties in this post:
    – The promotional LOTRO Start Pack does not confer Premium status on an account, but its benefits are so huge, it’s worth almost any player (even longtime veterans) getting.
    – Boxed copies of LOTRO (Shadows of Angmar or Mines of Moria) sold in Europe with the Codemasters logo are only valuable as colelctors’ items. The keys in those boxes aren’t valid with Turbine.

    • Thanks for the updates. Wasnt sure about the starter pack. And the boxed copies are pretty hard to find these days. Let alone confirm the codemaster codes. Wasnt able to find a definitive answer on that part.

      Will edit both parts probably tomorrow.

  4. Marmi /

    @Steve: if you bought expansions from in game store paying with TP it won’t unlock premium because you didn’t spent real money. If you bought them for $$ the I guess you should submit a ticket…
    @Nuvielle: are you really sure about this? Because it looks like a hole in their system requiring to spend cash to unlock premium…

  5. “Sam’s Gamgee starter pack”
    The correct title for the pack is ‘The Samwise Gamgee’s Starter Pack’.

    Unfortunately it is no longer possible to purchase this pack from the LOTRO Market even though it is still listed (trying to purchase produces an error message) This was confirmed by SpectreVortex CS in January.

    https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?597143-Error-trying-to-purchase-Samwise-Gamgee-s-Starter-Pack&p=7531291#post7531291

    Also in that thread on this, someone was unable to validate one of the codes they brought from Amazon where it is also still listed, so probably better to avoid any remaining codes until it is confirmed it will still work.

    On checking around quite widely recently for one of the free starter pack offers on various sites, all were outdated and none worked so unsure if there are actually any of these free promotional packs out there still from previous promotions.

    I did purchase the Steely Dawn DLC pack at the cheap price (via G2A) and that code worked so at least we have this for now.

  6. aol /

    The only way to unlock a premium account is to buy their cheapest LP package which is 600 points for $7.99

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