What Is Bumble BFF Premium?

In the BFF app, there is no Premium. BFF's help center says the app has no premium subscription options and that all features are free. The Premium plan you may be thinking of belonged to BFF Mode inside the Bumble app, and that mode has closed for members in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

BFF Mode had its own paid plan. It also sold add-ons: Spotlight, SuperSwipes and Compliments. They were ways to get seen faster or to stand out from the other people browsing.

Those products were tied to the old mode. The standalone BFF app does not carry them over, and its help center says there is nothing to buy.

A friend app that sells visibility has a built-in problem. The man who pays gets shown, the man who does not gets buried, and the result is a feed ranked by wallet instead of by who you would actually get along with.

BFF removes that. Everyone who is there has the same tools, and what decides your results is how you use them: which people you wave at, what you say first, and whether you suggest a meetup. That is a better deal for a man who has more time than money.

It also means you can ignore any message, ad or page that offers BFF Premium. If something asks for payment to get you friends on BFF, treat it as wrong and leave it alone.

Plans bought for the old mode are a different matter. BFF's help center says members who used Premium only for BFF Mode in the 30 days before the closure notice may be eligible for a refund of the unused part of the subscription. You have to cancel it first.

Where you paid decides where you ask. Store purchases go through the Apple App Store or Google Play. Payments made by card, PayPal or on Bumble's website go through Bumble support.

This is where men get caught. If you used your Premium benefits in Bumble Date, your subscription is not cancelled. It stays active in Date Mode.

Unused add-ons from BFF Mode also remain available to use in Bumble Date Mode. So you may still have something to spend, just not on the friend side.

Before you cancel anything, open your subscription details and read what the plan covers. A man who cancels a plan he was using for dates, thinking it was a BFF plan, has lost the thing he wanted to keep.

Money was never the real lever for friendship. A paid spotlight puts your face in front of more people, but a friendship comes from a conversation and then a second conversation.

Put the saved money and the saved energy toward something that gives you repetition. A class, a league or a club costs a modest fee and puts you in a room with the same people every week. That does more for your social life than any badge in an app.

a dating coach has pushed the same idea for years: put yourself where people gather around a shared interest and let familiarity do the work. A BFF Group can be the online side of it, and it costs nothing.

• Do not pay for BFF Premium, because the BFF app does not sell it
• If you paid for the old mode, check your subscription details
• Cancel before you ask for a refund of the unused part
• Ask through the store where you bought it, or through Bumble support
• Keep any plan you were still using for dates
• Spend your effort on a Group and a weekly activity