Did "always free" ever really work? When I set mine up months ago, the advice was use PAYG with free tier, because Always Free would always report it had no capacity available. Sure enough, I tested it and this was true at the time.
A "free tenancy" has limitations: e.g. your provisioned Free(tm) resources can suddenly be yoinked in order to satisfy an allocation from a user who's in a paid tenancy, even if that allocation also fits inside their Free(tm) envelope and ends up costing $0.00/mo. Simply put, the "paying" customers have dibs, even on free stuff.
Btw make sure you crank up the SSD speed all the way, as long as it is in the always free limit, you won't be charged for it ... Even though it says you will.