I quit WT around 2019 or thereabouts. A certain amount of grinding is OK, but an economy xhange made it impossible to play the vehicles I already owned without grinding in between to afford the repair cost.
It happend around june this year. Grind and economy was really bad. People were mad, Gaijin didnt listen and one day they made some PR faux pas, which resulted in review bombing and boycott. And since then... Gaijin actually listened and they fixed the game. Economy is much better, you can even have a bad game on br 8.0 and still have positive income. And amount of exp needed to grind to the top vehicles got halved
I was stoked to finally get a jet, and then really disappointed to learn that I couldn't afford to fly it. It's supposed to be a game, not a reflection of my real life inability to pay for jet fuel
It's alright up to about 6.0 afaik definitely better but still not great. Imagine if they realised how much money they could make it they didn't make mechanics to punish gameplay and priced things at reasonable prices.
You could probably find some premium codes, if you skimmed through some war and strategy games on YouTube. I see quite a lot of sponsorships, but maybe they only work for new account I have never paid enough attention to them.