How will a change of CSP partner affect already purchased reservations for Azure Plan customers?

Question

Hi! I have a question regarding purchase of reservations of virtual machines. The customer has one CSP provider today, but would most likely change the CSP provider during 2022. They are on Azure plan and has already bought reservations for VMs for 3 years. They have one subscription in their Azure environment today that is operated by the CSP provider. If this customer want to change the CSP provider in 2022, what will happen with these reservations, or will it happen anything at all? Is it necessary to do an exchange or refund of the reservations?

Answer 1

No, you can't transfer reservations between partners or providers. You would have to refund the reservation and then re-purchase it for the new partner if it is still required.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/transfer-azure-subscriptions-under-azure-plan

Right now, there is no penalty fee for this but in future refunding may incur a 12% penalty fee.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/reservations/exchange-and-refund-azure-reservations#cancel-exchange-and-refund-policies

****UPDATE:** Transfer of reservations is now possible.** This has very recently been announced. Please see below link for info:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/announcements/2022-february#21