yea, unto another question of thy billing

i own more land than my allotment so i'm on the $5 tier.

if i change my account to yearly, i'll pay $72 next billing date and $5 a month? or will i pay $132 and nothing a month unless i advance to another tier?

if the latter, what happens when i advance to another tier?

In answer to your question:

Land fee tiers and premium accounts are two different animals.

Premium accounts can be purchased on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis. These accounts give you a guaranteed weekly grant (formerly stipend) as well as a small allotment of land.

Land usage fees which are above and beyond any allotment you may have through a premium or lifetime account are billed on a monthly basis based on your peak usage in that month.

This allows you to set the level of land you want on a fluid basis.

Say one month you get a nice bonus from work (or Second Life) and decide you want to own your own sim and build a working interactive replica of the Jelly Belly factory floor. The next month when your washing machine gets out of balance and crushes your water heater, takes out a supporting beam in your garage and then proceeds to roll down the driveway in time to wipe out the neighbors new Porsche SUV, you may need to adjust your RL finances and cut back for a while on your building in Second Life.

Since you are billed at peak usage monthly, this means that on your monthly billing date, you are charged at the largest tier of land you approved and the next month's billing cycle would begin at whatever tier you ended on your billing cycle.

So, in the above case, if you were at a $5.00 a month land usage tier initially, jumped to the $195 a month tier but were forced to release the land before your next billing cycle, you would pay $195 for that month, but your next billing cycle would start at $0.00 since you had to release all your land due to that unfortunate washing machine incident.

Colin

your scenario was a most enlightening and enjoyable read. i might post another question just for the pleasure of seeing the answer.