How to get ChatGPT Plus for free: 1 of 7 offers is still open, and it's for veterans

Which free ChatGPT Plus offers are still open?

Six of the seven free ChatGPT Plus offers published since March 2025 are over, and the open one, OpenAI's veterans' year, has no published end date. We read every row below on 9 November 2026 from OpenAI's help center and the carriers' own pages.

Each point sits on the day the offer opened, except the 2026 student offer, which OpenAI dates only by its deadline. The carrier deals were bigger than OpenAI's student months. They were also local, and each carrier's own page now shows them over. SK Telecom's newsroom ran its offer to 28 February 2026, and O2's community team set the same end date. O2 later ran a six-month version, and on 9 April 2026 its team said it had no word on a return. Movistar's own page reads "Promoción finalizada" and promises a new offer soon, with no date. Orange's plan pages listed no ChatGPT Plus offer on 9 November.

How do veterans and service members get ChatGPT Plus for free?

You verify your service with ID.me on OpenAI's claim page, and OpenAI applies 12 months of Plus at no charge. OpenAI's terms for the offer say it's "exclusively for verified U.S. military veterans and retirees who transitioned from active-duty service within the past 12 months, and active service members who will transition within the next 12 months." A year of Plus is worth $240 at the US price. The steps, read on 9 November 2026:

1. Sign in to a personal ChatGPT account. Create one at chatgpt.com if you need to. An account tied to an Enterprise workspace can't take the offer.
2. Open the claim page. Go to chatgpt.com/veterans-claim and select Verify with ID.me.
3. Verify with ID.me. Sign in to ID.me or create an account, finish military verification and allow it to share the result with OpenAI.
4. Add your end date if asked. ChatGPT asks for your service end date when ID.me doesn't return one.
5. Claim it. Select Claim offer once ChatGPT shows Eligibility confirmed.

Three conditions catch people. If you pay for Plus through the App Store or Google Play, OpenAI says the offer is "unavailable while that subscription is active," so let the store plan lapse first. If you already pay for Plus on the web, don't cancel: the free year lands on your current plan. And an ID.me identity links to one ChatGPT account, so a claim on the wrong account needs OpenAI Support, not a second try.

The window is personal, not a calendar date. OpenAI publishes no closing date for the offer itself. Your eligibility depends on your separation date, which has to fall within 365 days either side of the day you claim.

Is the free ChatGPT Plus offer for students over?

Yes, OpenAI's 2026 Back to School offer closed to new claims on 31 October 2026. Its help article, read on 9 November, still lists the rule: "Claim the offer by October 31, 2026." It gave current US college and graduate students "four free monthly billing periods" of Plus after a SheerID check. That was worth $80 at the US price. The same page now tells anyone who hit an error before the deadline to contact Support.

If you claimed in time, you keep all four months. They run from your own claim date, so someone who claimed on 31 October has free Plus until late February 2027. Then it renews at $20 a month unless you cancel. Cancel early and you lose the rest: "Any remaining promotional months are forfeited when the cancellation takes effect."

There's no student offer open anywhere else. OpenAI ran a two-month offer for US and Canadian students from 31 March to 31 May 2025, and none for students outside North America. The 2026 terms say an earlier student offer "does not by itself prevent you" from claiming a new one, so a future window would be open to you again. ChatGPT Plus student discount tracks those windows.

Teachers get a different plan, not Plus. OpenAI says ChatGPT for Teachers is free through June 2028 for verified US K to 12 educators. You verify with a school email at chatgpt.com/k12-verification. College lecturers and students don't qualify.

Can you get ChatGPT Plus for free without qualifying for an offer?

Only if OpenAI picks you. Invite links, in-app trials and the offer some people see when they cancel all come from OpenAI's side, and none can be requested. OpenAI's invite FAQ says "Eligibility to send invites is determined by OpenAI for each campaign." It adds that "Generally, new users or users on free plans are eligible to use the invite." Three routes have shown up:

1. An invite link from a subscriber. OpenAI hands some users a few codes for "a free limited-duration trial," such as 3 months. You can't buy one, and a used link won't work twice.
2. An in-app one-month trial. My Mobile India reported on 20 January 2026 that a free first month of Plus was showing to some users in India and the US. It needed a card and renewed after the month.
3. The cancel button. On 1 January 2026 BleepingComputer reported that some subscribers who clicked Cancel were offered a free month instead. It only works if you already pay.

Gifted ChatGPT credits aren't free Plus either. OpenAI's gifting article, updated in November 2026, lets a Plus or Pro subscriber buy credits for a friend. Those credits pay for extra use of features such as Codex. They don't turn a Free account into Plus.

Which free ChatGPT Plus tricks get your account banned?

Any route that doesn't run through chatgpt.com, an OpenAI email or a partner's own app puts your account at risk. OpenAI's Plus promotions page says codes "may not be duplicated, sold or transferred." It allows "one code per subscriber." It also keeps the right to cancel "your account without refund in cases of suspected misuse or fraud." Four tricks come up most:

1. Shared or "lifetime" Plus accounts. Reddit threads and resale sites sell logins to one paid account. The seller keeps the password and can read every chat you type.
2. Bought promo codes. A code sold online breaks the "may not be sold" rule, and OpenAI "does not reissue promo codes" when one fails.
3. A VPN to a country with an offer. We found no country with an open carrier offer as of November 2026, and a carrier code needs a carrier account in that country anyway.
4. Fake "free Plus" pages. In September 2026 Huntress traced malware to a custom GPT named "Plus 5.6" that some people reached through Google search ads. It sent them to a fake CAPTCHA page that told them to paste in a PowerShell command.

Check two things before you enter a card. The page should be on chatgpt.com. And checkout should show the $0 total itself. OpenAI says that if checkout doesn't show the expected price, "do not complete the purchase."

What happens when free ChatGPT Plus ends?

Your plan renews at the standard Plus price, $20 a month in the US, unless you cancel first. OpenAI's veterans terms say the subscription "automatically renews at the standard ChatGPT Plus monthly rate unless canceled." The student terms say the same at $20.

Cancelling early costs you the free time. OpenAI's promotions page warns: "If it was a free promotion, your access may end immediately upon cancellation." It also says resubscribing "will not restore the promotional price." So don't cancel on day one to be safe. Set a reminder a week before the free period ends, and cancel before the first paid billing date on the platform that bills you. How to cancel ChatGPT Plus has the clicks for web, Apple and Google Play.

Is ChatGPT Free close enough to Plus to skip the hunt?

For everyday text, yes. OpenAI's pricing page, read on 9 November 2026, lists "Unlimited text chats with GPT-6" on Free, the same row as Plus. Plus earns its $20 elsewhere. It adds GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6.1 Sol, which Free and Go don't get, and it doubles Free's 27K Instant context window to 54K. It also adds custom GPTs and the full deep research and Codex, where Free and Go get limited versions.

So the rule is short. If you never miss reasoning models or custom GPTs, Free is the free Plus you were looking for. If you want more uploads and images but not Sol, ChatGPT Go at $8 a month covers it, and ChatGPT Go vs Plus shows what the $12 gap buys. Go has a free route of its own through Revolut, which how to get ChatGPT Go for free walks through.

Whizi, which publishes this page, doesn't give away ChatGPT Plus. Its free tier is 10 messages a day on Whizi AI, Auto and Claude Haiku 5.5, with no GPT model. Pro at $29.99 a month, with a $1.99 first week, puts ChatGPT Sol next to Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet and Gemini in one chat. That only saves money if you'd otherwise pay for Plus and Claude Pro, which come to $40. Whizi has no custom GPTs, no Codex and no ChatGPT Work, so keep Plus if those are what you use. The cheapest way to use Claude and GPT and one subscription for every AI model run the numbers.