Coronavirus freebies: Companies giving out free stuff right now, and how to get it

By Kim Komando

April 9, 2020

© Sarayuth Punnasuriyaporn | Dreamstime.com

In the wake of the spread of COVID-19, many companies are offering special freebies and deals. This is especially helpful for those who have to keep a close eye on their bank accounts.

Freebies alone can’t offset the hard financial time’s people are experiencing. Thankfully, there are several companies looking to hire people immediately. Need a job? Tap or click here for a list of 12 companies that are hiring right now.

From entertainment to fitness to food to education and more, there are countless freebies you can enjoy — if you know how to find them. But who wants to spend hours searching the internet? Well, you don’t have to because we already did.

Time for freebies

Since most of us have nothing but time, we should find ways to stay sane. Luckily, several companies are willing to share free forms of entertainment, tech and more.

Want to learn a few new skills? There’s a freebie for that. Need something to keep your kids busy? There are kid-friendly options, too. Let’s start with entertainment.

Entertainment

• Quibi: Quick bites, Big stories. Quibi is a new streaming service that offers fresh content from today’s top talent — one quick bite at a time. Sign up by the end of April and you’ll receive a free 90-day trial. T-Mobile customers with unlimited family plans can get Quibi free for a year.
• Amazon Prime Video. Need help keeping the kiddos entertained? Amazon is offering a selection of family titles for free to all Amazon customers.
• Ken Burn’s Baseball documentary. Streaming on PBS, acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns returns to tell the story of baseball and thus, the story of America. With nine meaty episodes, it’s sure to keep you busy for a while.
• Netflix. Sign up for a 30-day free trial. Be sure to cancel or a plan will cost you up to $15.99 per month.
• Sling, free TV and movies. Sling is giving away a week of free live channels, On-Demand movies and shows. This includes news channels like CNN, Fox and MSNBC.
• CBS All Access. Watch “Star Trek: Picard,” “Big Brother,” “Survivor,” “NCIS” and more with no commercials free for 30 days, expanded from the regular 7-day trial.
• Hallmark Movies NOW for those feel-good films. Watch titles from Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and Hallmark Hall of Fame free for a month. Be sure to cancel, though, or you’ll pay $4.99 a month or $59.99 a year.
• Seattle Symphony broadcasts. The Seattle Symphony plans to share performances with everyone during these uncertain times. Check their broadcasts page to see their latest program scheduling.
• Broadway plays and musicals you can watch from home. These days, many stage productions are filmed for distribution on streaming services. Many classic plays and musicals are available online right now.
• Nightly Met Opera Streams. While the Met has canceled live performances, it is offering nightly streams. Available across streaming apps, a new classic performance will be air every night.
• Audible stories for kids. For as long as schools are closed, Audible is offering a collection of stories for kids to stream. Available in six different languages and on your desktop, laptop and phone, simply find a story you like and start listening.

Tech

• Free tech support. Support.com is offering free tech support to help people working or studying remotely during the coronavirus pandemic.
• Skype unveils free “Meet Now” video calls. Now you can host a video conference call by simply clicking one link. Generate your free unique link with one click, share it with participants and enjoy unlimited meetings with Skype.
• Get Microsoft Teams for free. As the world transitions to distance learning and remote work, virtual collaboration is essential. Microsoft Teams allows users to chat, meet and call one another individually or as a group chat.
• Microsoft Office 365 E1 trial – Microsoft is making a special E1 Trial license available in response to the increased need for employees to work from home (WFH) due to the coronavirus outbreak. You can sign-up for a free 6-month Office 365 E1 Trial with this offer.
• Zoho’s toolkit Remotely is free until July 1, 2020. This is a suite of software tools used for communication, productivity, and collaboration. In response to the coronavirus, Remotely can be used free of cost until July 1.
• Stay connected with Hootsuite. In response to the global economic impact of COVID-19, Hootsuite is offering free access to its Professional plan to help small businesses and nonprofits stay connected to their customers and audiences.
• Advanced Google Hangouts Meet features for free. Through July 1, 2020, all G Suite customers can make use of Hangouts Meet’s advanced features, like meetings of up to 250 participants, live streaming and recording.
• Zoom for video, conference rooms and phone. Zoom is free software that allows users to have online meetings, video webinars, virtual conference rooms, a phone system and business-facing instant messaging.
• Meero offers free large file transfers. Meero’s MeeroDrop service has been upgraded to 10GB of capacity and three months of validity, which are features traditionally reserved for the premium service.

Fitness and wellness

• CorePower Yoga is giving everyone free access to a new collection of online classes every week so you can keep your practice moving — wherever you are.
• Yoga With Adriene. Adriene’s yoga channel is immensely popular and perfect for beginners who just might need a little extra zen and a good way to workout at home. The best part? You don’t even need advanced equipment.

• Down Dog fitness apps for free. All of Down Dog’s apps, Down Dog, Yoga for Beginners, HIIT, Barre and 7 Minute Workout are free until May 1st. To all students and teachers, Down Dog is offering their school memberships for free until July 1.
• Planet Fitness home work-ins. Every day at 4 p.m. PT, Planet Fitness, is live-streaming a workout for those at home. You don’t even need advanced equipment to follow along.
• EyeQue is giving away a free at-home vision test you can use to order glasses from online retailers. Visit the site and use code STAYHOME.

Restaurants

• Buy an entree from Olive Garden and get another for free. Purchase any entree from Olive Garden, choose a soup or salad and choose an additional entree for a total of $12.99.
• Chipotle, Red Lobster, Denny’s, and Popeye’s offer free delivery. When ordering online, a number of fast-food restaurants are offering free delivery and a selection of deals for the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Education

• Kahoot! Premium for schools or higher education. The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused many educational institutions to close temporarily and rely on distance learning. To help educators conduct distance learning, Kahoot! is providing schools and higher education institutions affected by the coronavirus with free access to Kahoot! Premium until they reopen
• Microsoft Minecraft: Education Edition. To help teachers and students stay connected to the classroom, Minecraft: Education Edition is now available at no cost through June 2020 for all educators and learners who have a valid Office 365 Education account.
• Amazon Future Engineer Program. Amazon is offering free online computer science classes for any student or teacher affected by school closures due to COVID-19 in the U.S.
• Airtable Pro Plan. With so many schools transitioning to remote classes, Airtable is offering free access to its Pro plan to any student. Pro plans are also available for free to any non-political humanitarian groups working on COVID-19 relief efforts.
• 450 Ivy League courses you can take for free. Across the eight Ivy League schools, there are more than 450 active courses from Computer Science to Art & Design and everything in-between.
• 3,800 free Coursera courses through your university. Any university that signs up for Coursera, which is free to do, will have access to 3,800 courses across 400 specialties. Up to 5,000 different licenses can be earned through these courses.
• Scholastic Learn at Home. From preschool through ninth grade, Scholastic is offering daily projects to help keep kids read, think and grow. There are also additional resources offered to families and teachers looking to ease the transition to at-home learning.
• Khan Academy’s free teaching resources. For kids from two to 18, Khan Academy offers daily learning schedules and resources for parents and teachers alike.

Sports

• NBA League Pass free preview. During the NBA hiatus, the NBA is offering complimentary access to both full-length and condensed replays of all games from the 2019-2020 season. It’s also offering an archive of many classic games and NBA content until April 22.
• NFL Game Pass for free. Through May 31, 2020, the NFL is offering its Game Pass service for free. Users can replay NFL games from 2009 to 2019 and watch NFL original shows. Watch full replays or condensed games.
• NHL Live for free. Until April 20, 2020, the NHL is offering its NHL Live pass for free. Stream more than 1,000 games, both live and on-demand, as well as the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Price Breaks

• T-Mobile Connect phone plan. In response to COVID-19, T-Mobile has launched a new phone plan for $15 a month plus tax that offers unlimited talk and text, 2 GB of high-speed data and access to T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G network.
• U-Haul self-storage. U-Haul is offering free self-storage for 30 days to college students in the U.S. and Canada for new customers. You must have a valid college ID to take advantage of this offer.
• GM offering 0 percent interest loans and free Onstar. To help offset the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, GM is offering 0%, 84-month loans with deferred payment for up to 120 days. GM is also rolling out free Onstar support to all current owners of GM vehicles, as well as 3 GB of free data.

Once you tire of all the free things you can do and the deals you have access to, we’ll all probably be back to work! Just remember to take breaks to check in on friends and family. Tap or click here to learn how to host a virtual get-together.

We will continue to update this list, so bookmark it and check back for more offerings.

Tags: companies, coronavirus, COVID-19, deals, education, entertainment, fitness, freebies, Google, offers, pandemic, remote work, restaurants, sports, tech, wellness