I really wanted to get back into Star Trek Online with my old account which was a premium account with 50 hours of progress on it, is there a way to make it into a free to play account or should I give up or make a new account

I don't think you need to do anything to turn your account in a f2p one, but you'll probably need to link your old Cryptic account to a Perfect World account.

Here's the FAQ for the account linking: https://support.perfectworld.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4134

@Amtiskaw: thx for the info, but now it only takes me to reactivate subscription page when i log onto star trek online site

@stange88: Have you since tried to log in to the game launcher? After you link your Cryptic/PW account there is no requirement to log in to the website in order to play.