Free Movies with On Demand But Now Cost?

I’ve never heard of such a thing where every on-demand movie is free. Either you may have misunderstood the agent in that they were talking about a ‘mostly’ free on-demand channel library (every customer has access to it) or they did make a mistake. 

On-Demand content for rent or purchase is NOT FREE and every customer pays for it. Only on rare occasions will DIRECTV/DIRECTV STREAM grant one or a few free paid movies to a customer as a gift/promotion. 

Hello. Being able to watch your favorite On Demand content is really important for us! Some On Demand content is available for free based on the package you have on your account. However, you're always able to rent or purchase more movies for excellent prices. To check for more information about the films and shows available for free, please visit our website: https://www.directv.com. 

Part of the issue is that until recently, every on-demand movie was free - there was no pay per view on DirecTV Stream (and never had been on AT&T TV/DirecTV Now).  Actually, to this point I've still never seen a PPV offering.  I believe they are only on the Osprey, not on any of the other devices.  On everything else, the movies listed on the "On demand" tab are free, and I assume most on the Osprey are also. 

I'm still confused (as is my husband) about this as even our sales person at AT&T said he thought the On Demand movies were free and told us that the day we signed up.  Somewhere someone is not stating the facts and that's what's confusing. I do know my husband saw one free movie at least.

I don’t blame you. 

I’m guessing that movie your husband watched must have been automatically free from the start. In other words the on demand of it is free of charge to anyone.

No, this is something new that I have found.  I know when they updated that they were starting to add paid on-demand that you rent/buy but now when I go on to channels that I pay for on their on-demand they want you to pay for episodes of stuff that should be free with your channel lineup.  It is truly sad when they have to charge and I have to pay $2.99 to watch an episode of sponge bob that they play on tv all the time on a channel that I pay for every month.  The on-demand has changed in the last few months and in my opinion, not for the better it is only getting worse.

Can you indicate a specific example so I can also check?  When I tried a couple of things at random yesterday, I didn't see anything odd - they just started playing as expected.  Also, which streaming device was this on?

@Jrandomuser  Here is an example I have Osprey boxes I get the Nickelodeon Channel and when my kids wanted to watch Sponge Bob and it was not on TV at that time I would usually just go to Nick on-demand and find an episode and they were all free to watch now when I go all I can find is episodes that cost $2.99 an episode to be able to watch on Nick on-demand now. 

OK.  On an iPad, I just went to the On Demand tab, picked Networks>Nick>SpongeBob, and randomly picked S13E8.  It is playing (with commercials) with no mention of charges or anything.  Is this what you did and you got a different behavior?

I will go try this on an Osprey to see if it is any different.

@Jrandomuser  When I went onto my Roku device today to see if the same thing would happen as you sense you said that you were able to access episodes using your iPad and not be charged.  I was able to play episodes without being charged like it used to be.  But for the same exact episode to play it on my Osprey box it wants to charge me $2.99.  This is very frustrating as I should not have to switch my device just to be able to access on-demand content for free.  This has to be some kind of error on their end but who knows which device is displaying the on-demand content correctly?  You would think the Osprey box would be correct as this is Directv's box that they released but why would they try to charge for content when on all other supported devices it is free?  Very confused by this!

I tried this on my Osprey and it behaved the same - no charge for episodes.  Again, the episode I tried was from season 13 - I couldn’t find available older episodes.   However, I also tried to find PPV content - recent movies or whatever - and couldn’t find any. I wonder if this is yet another “grandfathered” account difference. 

I only get 3 streams and can’t get more (until a couple of weeks ago it was only  2), I only get a 20 hour DVR (though they now let me pay $10/month to get the “big” DVR), I can’t get Ospreys from DTV (the one I have is from the beta test), and apparently I can’t get PPV - perhaps this issue (and the fact I don’t see it) is related to that. 

@Jrandomuser Sorry this is the best pic I could get but this is what I get when selecting an episode it does give the option to record if the episode is airing sometime soon but if I want to watch it now or the option to record is not there it wants me to pay $2.99

I tried this on the Osprey I have (for episode S4E1).  It showed the same as this screenshot (well, the left side) but did not offer the "Ways to watch" option, so did not offer a way to pay for the episode.  There was no way for me to watch (payment or no payment) - other than wait until it is scheduled to play on 1/14.  So it appears that this is not a new "bad" thing that has been done, but a new "feature" - you have access to episodes (or movies) via PPV that you otherwise wouldn't have access to at all - the ones that were free are still free.  I (probably as a grandfathered subscriber) don't appear to have access to PPV at all, so I have access to what was there before, but not to this new feature. 

At some level that isn't surprising - I think DTV would like to get rid of the grandfathered subscribers, since we pay less, so they impose limitations on our subscriptions, and no PPV is apparently the latest.  Additionally, we are limited to 3 streams (formerly 2 with the option to pay $5/month to get the third - they recently decided to toss that in for us, but still no option for more than 3), only a 20 hour DVR (with the fairly recent option to get the unlimited for $10/month), no ability to buy Ospreys from DTV (the one I have is from the beta test), no access to some of the otherwise available add-ons, and probably some others that escape me at the moment.  Oh, well.

You are not alone.  All the sales people throw around techy terms that not everyone understands.  They make it sound like you are getting all this free access, but what it is is access to a lot of stuff you have to pay for.  It's kinda like amazon products; you buy prime which only allows you to access things that non-prime members can access, but you can't actually read it, view it or use it without paying.  That's what DT has does.  Non-DT customers cannot access these movies even if they wanted to pay for them, not through DT anyway.  As a DT customer we can see that a movie is available here, but we still have to pay to actually see the movie.

It's double talk and no one cares.

If it's not double talk then why don't the sales people use laymen's terms and why don't they spend a few extra minutes explaining how this all REALLY works.  Our choices are fairly limited, consumers are more likely to choose reality and honesty over (Edited per community guidelines) and untruths any day, and because our choices are limited, we might still choose DT and be okay because we made an informed decision instead of being frustrated and unhappy and want to leave DT because they are full of crap and because they lied just to get our business.

Don't let anyone, employee or forum guru tell you are crazy and that you knew what the sales person said...they do not know what they are talking about...the sales person fed you a line of crap.

Our sales guy told us the same thing.  He said there was a "hidden" way to access apps and on-demand and we could access them any time and watch for free.  He lied.