The Athletic UK Reviews 53

I got an introductory offer for £1 a month for 12 months then after they automatically renewed it for a year at £79.99 without any prior notice. I contacted them on 2 occasions and got no response. What makes it doubly frustrating is that you can't review/edit your account details on the app, has to be done online and the cynical in me says its for exactly this reason. I really enjoy a lot of their content but I find this really underhand

Had an issue with a renewed subscription for £59.99 without warning, contacted customer support and they refunded immediately

Sign you up on an initial rate, hope you forget the subscription, then charge you £59.99 a year later and refuse to refund even within days of that renewal - do not sign up for anything with this company, awful!

Impossible to cancel despite them suggesting you can cancel 'anytime' when you try there's just a page that suggests there's a fault. How are companies allowed to do this? Stay well away unless you want to be unable to cancel.

Don't subscribe, they charge you £59.99 after a cycle and you can't cancel or get a refund for it, in case you forget. I should have remembered it but when you are busy and have so much going, you lose track. No cooling off period when it comes to subscription to payment. That's a lot of money to spend on what you can get from sports bloggers, YouTubers and Sky Sports for free.

Unlike others who have written a review, I was ok with the auto-subscription and wanted to pay as I liked the content. What happened was they took the annual fee off my Apple iPhone (9th June) and then locked me out a week (15th week) after they took my money.

I tried to reach out to their customer service, but they said I had to speak to The NY Times. When I finally got through to them on a chat line, they claimed it was my fault as I had cancelled my subscription. I showed them screen shots of the auto renew and the amount deducted from my Apple Pay, but they wouldn’t accept it and insisted that i had cancelled and said it was not their problem. They told me to speak to Apple and that it was Apples problem to solve and not mine.

This was the worst customer service chat I had ever had. No empathy, no acknowledgment or even understanding, just your problem and Apple’s fault.

Well they just lost a customer as I asked Apple to refund my payment (they confirmed that it had been charged and paid for already), which they happily did after showing my chat record with NY times/Athletic.

No reminder about subscription renewal of £59.99. Contacted them twice and got a chatbot response both times saying there is no refunds for subscriptions. Pursued it further and got a full refund. Don’t give up. Keep at them. Should at least give you a day or 2 grace period once money has been taken for a subscription you’ve potentially forgotten about.

“Lovely article” denigrating the character of British people! After reading it I cancelled my subscription!

Without any warning or my permission,I have had £49.95 taken out of my account. I had a reduced price trial with The Athletic 5 years ago, which I did not take up.
When I contacted them, the only advice they offered me was how to close my account.
Be aware!

My card was charged £59.99 for a renewal today without any prior warning or notice. "Hailey" emailing on behalf of The Athletic refuses to refund this & I am being forced to go via the Citizens Advice Ombudsman for a refund as it is illegal the approach The Athletic are taking as it is in breach of the requirement for a 14 day cooling off period.

My subscription was auto renewed for £59.99 today the 22nd February without any prior warning. I had paid £9.99 the previous year. I requested a refund immediately that day but was refused by Hailey from Athletic Support saying these are not given. This is not acceptable and I have cancelled my subscription for 2026.

Rated 2* because I enjoy The Ahletic's content, but as with others, auto-renewing with no notice or warning for 6x the initial price (£59.99), and then selectively refusing refunds is poor form and leaves a sour taste in terms of subscribing in the future or recommending the service to others.

Like others, I was also charged £59.99 for a yearly renewal that I was not reminded or warned about. I contacted the Athletic via their support pages to request a refund which I successfully got. The Athletic has excellent content, and while I am happy they refunded me without much grappling, I think they need to do better with their renewal process and renewal pricing!

I took out a subscription under an offer and forgot to cancel before the required date, mainly because I never used the service and had forgotten. I was billed for the following year (no warning email) and immediately sought to cancel. No refunds.

So this is technically my fault but important to understand there seems to be no cool off period for online services. Very mercenary imo.

Deliberate tactic not to notify you that your subscription is due for renewal, as they know 99 out of a 100 people will not renew, and so this allows them to 'legitimately' take the full payment, and looking at their so called cancellation policy, which helpfully states, you can cancel but youll receive no refund, and based on what I've read, I have little/no hope of getting my money returned.

A very poor business model and will do my level best to warn all my friends and family of dangers and pitfalls of a NY Times subscription.

No refund even if you're seconds into an yearly subscription. They wont give you noticed that your subscription is about to renew but don't think that'll give them a second thought about a blanket no refund policy.

Predatory business tactics.

Great content, top tier writing and as a subscriber for 3 years they’ve had good deals on subscriptions.

BUT… this year there was no reminder about when subscriptions are a) due and b) if you are about to change plan and c) they have the most difficult system to even see what subscription you have let alone deal with the payment details or change it

My subscription went from £18 to £54 this year. I thought I had cancelled it on my iTunes account after I paid last year as it didn’t show up on the subscriptions and even put a calendar notification to check before payment this year. I couldn’t find where to do this on the app but seeing as I’d cancelled the subscription through Apple I thought I was okay. This morning I check my banking and find £54 taken out of my account. Just disgusting business practices, and it’s really soured me on the whole company

Took £59.99 from me without telling me in advance. Bunch of fraudsters!!!

This app (whose parent company is New York Times) allows online bullies to bully people off the app by flagging comments that don't align with their views. The bullies are allowed to continue bullying, name-calling and insulting in order to shut down discussions. When I enquired about why I was banned, I was told that my comments were flagged multiple times. That was three months after I made the enquiry. I sent another email to ask if a human actually reads the comments before banning people. I haven't received a response yet.

I took out an annual plan last year for £9.99, but have not really got anywhere near enough content to continue. However, The Athletic have just taken £59.99 annual subscription from me, without any notification or renewal reminder. They do not refund once they've taken the money. I am sure that is a deliberate policy, not to remind you, just take the money and hidden in their terms and conditions is this no refunds policy. This is a scam, and should not be allowed. Avoid signing up to this poor publication. Shame on the NYT for operating like this. A genuine UK company would not operate with poor ethics like this. You would get reminders and a chance to cancel before they took the money.