The pitch: half price in the months that hurt
Here is txu.com's Season Pass page as of August 2026. Big type: "Ultimate Season Pass. 50% Off Peak Winter & Summer. Save $450 a Year on Avg." A Start Saving button. And below the fold, footnote 1, which carries the entire plan: "50% off energy charges applies to Jan/Feb and Jul/Aug bills. 25% off energy charges applies to Mar/Jun and Sep/Dec bills. TDU and other billed charges apply normally in all months." This review is about the gap between the big type and that footnote, and about the one number neither of them mentions: the rate the discounts come off of.
Season Pass is a family. The flagship is Ultimate Season Pass 12, pitched on txu.com's own plan lineup as "built for extreme winters and summers" and tagged "Great for electric heat homes." Its summer-only sibling is Ultimate Summer Pass 12: "50% off peak summer, plus more months of savings and free energy charges on the hottest days." People also search for Season Pass 12 and Season Pass 24, earlier names in the same line; as of August 2026, the versions TXU sells are the 12-month Ultimate plans.
This is the third TXU plan structure we have reviewed, after Free Pass and its seven retroactive free days and Free Nights & Solar Days and its 9 p.m. window. The engine never changes: the giveaway is priced into the rate before you arrive. Season Pass just runs that engine on a calendar instead of a clock.
Claims vs. fine print
Four claims on the front. Four footnotes on the back. Here they are, side by side.
The mailer says
"50% Off Peak Winter & Summer"
The fine print says
The discount applies to the energy charge only, and the energy charge is 15.8 cents, a number TXU set. At 1,000 kWh in Oncor territory, the undiscounted plan works out to 23.2 cents all-in, 10.4 cents above the cheapest flat no-gimmick plan (12.8 cents, August 2026). Even in the half-price months, the bill averages about 15.3 cents. The 50%-off months never beat the flat plan you could have had all year.
Source: Ultimate Season Pass 12 Electricity Facts Label, Oncor territory, August 7, 2026; ElectricRates.org Oncor market data, August 2026
The mailer says
"Save $450 a Year on Avg"
The fine print says
The footnote defines the figure: "$450 savings based on an average of self-reported savings during discounted months from a 2024 survey of satisfied customers on Season Pass." Self-reported, from customers described as satisfied, counting only the discounted months, and measured against the plan's own undiscounted price, not against the market. At TXU's own advertised 18.6 cent average, the plan costs about $696 a year more than the cheapest flat Oncor plan at 1,000 kWh.
Source: txu.com Season Pass page, footnote 1 (August 2026); Ultimate Season Pass 12 EFL, Oncor, August 7, 2026
The mailer says
"...free energy charges on the hottest days" (Ultimate Summer Pass)
The fine print says
The free days are the three highest-temperature days on each bill with a read date from May through September, decided by the nearest designated weather station, not by you, and revealed after the billing period closes. TXU's own EFL assumes those days carry 7.2% of your annual usage. From October through April, seven full months, the Summer Pass calendar offers no discount of any kind.
Source: Ultimate Summer Pass 12 Electricity Facts Label, Oncor territory, August 7, 2026; txu.com Ultimate Summer Pass page, footnote 1 (August 2026)
The mailer says
"Great for electric heat homes" (TXU's own tag)
The fine print says
The tag is honest, and it is also the plan's escape hatch. The advertised 18.6 cent average assumes 41.9% of your annual usage lands in January, February, July, and August, the three-year average for TXU customers already on this product. Those four months hold 33.2% of the calendar. If your usage spreads more evenly than an electric-heat home's, your real average climbs toward the undiscounted 23.2 cents.
Source: txu.com Our Plans lineup (August 2026); Ultimate Season Pass 12 EFL, Oncor territory, August 7, 2026
The rate, straight from the EFL
TXU shows this plan's Electricity Facts Label only after you feed its shopping site a ZIP code. We used downtown Dallas ZIP 75201 and pulled both EFLs, dated August 7, 2026, for Oncor territory. Ultimate Season Pass 12: a $9.95 monthly base charge, a 15.8 cent energy charge on every kWh, Oncor delivery charges passed through on top, a 12-month fixed term, and a $150 early cancellation fee. TXU's stated averages: 20.0 cents per kWh at 500 kWh, 18.6 at 1,000, 17.9 at 2,000.
Under those averages sit two assumptions. TXU assumes 41.9% of your electricity lands inside the 50%-off window (January, February, July, August) and 32.8% inside the 25%-off months. Those are three-year averages from customers already on this product, the electric-heat homes the plan is aimed at. The 50% window covers 121 days, exactly a third of the year, so TXU is assuming its customers pack heavily into those months. A home with gas heat or an even usage curve will not match that mix, and its real average price rises accordingly.
Ultimate Summer Pass 12 runs the same chassis with a summer calendar: a 15.5 cent energy charge, the same $9.95 base, averages of 19.9, 18.5, and 17.8 cents, a 50% discount in June through August, 25% in May and September, and the three hottest days of each May-through-September bill free. Add TXU's own assumptions and 57.0% of a customer's annual usage falls in the discounted-or-free window; the other 43.0% bills at the full energy charge across the seven months from October through April, when the plan offers nothing.
One more line from the paperwork worth your time. The plan's rosiest advertised number, 17.9 cents, is its 2,000 kWh figure, roughly double what a typical apartment uses; rates quoted at 2,000 kWh flatter almost every plan, this one included, since the same EFL shows 20.0 cents at 500 kWh, a climb of 2.1 cents as usage drops.
Both plans are sold through txu.com's shopping flow, which reveals rates and EFLs only after you enter a ZIP code; we used downtown Dallas ZIP 75201. Ultimate Season Pass 12 also appears in the open Oncor marketplace feed we track, at 20.0, 18.6, and 17.9 cents at the three EFL tiers as of August 2026. New residential customers get TXU's Total Satisfaction Guarantee, a 60-day window to switch or leave without the cancellation fee; the same footnote adds, "You remain responsible for any billed and unbilled charges."
How the discount calendar works
The calendar, from the EFL: a 50% discount on energy charges in January, February, July, and August. A 25% discount in March, June, September, and December. Nothing in April, May, October, and November. Note what the website's shorthand hides: "Mar/Jun and Sep/Dec bills" reads like two four-month ranges, eight discounted months. The EFL settles it at four single months. A third of your year carries no discount at all.
Every discount touches the energy charge only. The $9.95 base charge and Oncor's delivery charges, $4.06 a month plus 6.0 cents on every kWh as of August 2026, bill in full in all twelve months. So a "half price" January is not a half-price bill: at 1,000 kWh, roughly $74 of delivery and base charges never gets discounted a cent.
The Summer Pass adds the hottest-days mechanic, and it works like Free Pass's free days: retroactively. The three highest-temperature days on each May-through-September bill, as measured by the nearest designated weather station, get 100% off energy charges. Ties break by temperature, then usage; if temperature data has gaps, TXU substitutes up to three of your highest-usage days. You never pick the days and never know them until the bill closes. The thermometer picks your discount, and TXU already priced in what the thermometer will do, assuming 7.2% of your annual usage lands on those days.
Give TXU this: the discounts are automatic and the paperwork is public. There is no window to chase, no credit cliff to clear, and the EFL prints every number. That is more than Free Pass, sold by phone with no public rate, can say. But automatic cuts both ways. Nothing you do, no thermostat discipline, no laundry schedule, changes what this plan costs you. The calendar decides, and the calendar was priced before you signed.
Do the math on 50% off
Walk the year at 1,000 kWh a month, using nothing but the EFL and Oncor's published delivery charges (August 2026). In the four half-price months, the energy charge drops to 7.9 cents and the bill lands near $153, an average of about 15.3 cents per kWh. In the four 25%-off months: about $193, or 19.3 cents. In April, May, October, and November, full freight: about $232, or 23.2 cents. The cheapest flat no-gimmick Oncor plan charges 12.8 cents at that usage, a $128 bill, every month of the year. Season Pass's best months lose to it by 2.5 cents. Its worst months lose by 10.4.
Here is the whole plan in three numbers. Undiscounted, Season Pass runs 23.2 cents all-in at 1,000 kWh, a 10.4 cent markup over the flat floor. TXU's own usage assumptions say the discounts hand back 4.6 cents of that, landing at the advertised 18.6. The other 5.8 cents, about $58 a month, roughly $696 a year, stays with TXU. That is the price of the word "50%."
Set the $450 savings claim next to that. The figure is self-reported, from a 2024 survey of satisfied customers, counting discounted months only, measured against the plan's own undiscounted price. Take it entirely at face value and it still describes a rebate on a markup: $450 handed back out of roughly $1,250 charged above the flat-floor baseline. And you do not need the open market to see the shape of it. In the same Oncor feed, TXU's own plain Simple Rate 12 advertises 16.5 cents at the 2,000 kWh EFL tier while Ultimate Season Pass advertises 17.9, and Simple Rate undercuts it at all three disclosed tiers, as of August 2026. TXU's own no-frills plan beats TXU's own discount plan at TXU's own numbers.
The Summer Pass math rhymes. Its 57.0% assumed-discounted share sounds generous until you see the other side: 43.0% of usage billed at the full 15.5 cent energy charge plus delivery across seven straight months, October through April, when the plan does nothing. A flat 12.8 cent plan does not go dormant for seven months. It just stays 12.8.
23.2¢
Season Pass all-in at 1,000 kWh in the four months with no discount (Oncor, August 2026)
15.3¢
The average in the 50%-off months, still above the 12.8¢ flat no-gimmick floor
$696
Extra per year vs the cheapest flat Oncor plan at 1,000 kWh, at TXU's own advertised 18.6¢ average
43.0%
Share of usage TXU assumes Summer Pass customers bill at full price in the seven no-discount months (EFL, August 2026)
Fine print, decoded
The five footnotes on the back of the mailer, translated into plain English.
| What the footnote says | What it means |
|---|---|
| "50% off energy charges applies to Jan/Feb and Jul/Aug bills. 25% off energy charges applies to Mar/Jun and Sep/Dec bills." (txu.com, footnote 1) | Read quickly, "Mar/Jun and Sep/Dec" sounds like March through June and September through December, eight discounted months. The EFL is explicit: the 25% discount covers March, June, September, and December only. April, May, October, and November carry no discount at all. |
| "TDU and other billed charges apply normally in all months." (txu.com, footnote 1) | The discounts touch the 15.8 cent energy charge only. The $9.95 base charge and Oncor's delivery charges, about $74 of a 1,000 kWh bill as of August 2026, bill in full every month, including the "half price" ones. |
| "$450 savings based on an average of self-reported savings during discounted months from a 2024 survey of satisfied customers on Season Pass. Individual results may vary based on plan and usage." (txu.com, footnote 1) | The headline number is not a measurement against the market or even against your old bill. It is what customers TXU describes as satisfied said they saved, in the discounted months only, compared with this plan's own undiscounted price. The four full-price months do not count toward it. |
| The advertised averages assume 41.9% of usage falls in the 50%-off period and 32.8% in the 25%-off period, based on TXU customers on this product over the past three years. (EFL) | The 18.6 cent average belongs to heavy winter-and-summer users, the electric-heat homes this plan targets. The 50% window is 33.2% of the calendar; TXU assumes its customers put 41.9% of their usage there. If your home does not run that hot and cold, your average drifts toward the undiscounted 23.2 cents. |
| "100% off energy charges applies to 3 hottest days May-Sept. measured from nearest designated weather station to customer." (txu.com Ultimate Summer Pass, footnote 1); the EFL adds that ties break by temperature then usage, and that data gaps are backfilled with up to three highest-usage days. | On Summer Pass, a weather station picks your free days after the billing period ends. You cannot plan around them, and TXU already assumed their value, 7.2% of annual usage, when it set the 15.5 cent rate. |
| Fixed rate. Contract term 12 months. Early Cancellation Fee $150.00. (EFL); "Total Satisfaction Guarantee - New residential customers only. Cancellation fee applies if you cancel after 60 days. You remain responsible for any billed and unbilled charges." (txu.com, footnote 3) | You get 60 days to change your mind if you are a new customer. From day 61, leaving early costs $150, including in month eight, when you have paid four full-price months and the next discount is still a season away. |
What to do instead
Seasonal discounts are the same engine as free nights: the giveaway is funded by the rate, and our free-nights guide shows that engine across brands. For contrast, here is the live Oncor market on the day we published (August 2026). The cheapest all-in plan at 1,000 kWh was 7.0 cents per kWh, but it earns that number with a bill credit that punishes you in low-usage months; bill-credit plans cut both ways. The cheapest flat plan with no credits and no tiers was 12.8 cents at 1,000 kWh, every month, no calendar required. Every plan below publishes its full Electricity Facts Label before you enroll.