Apple Podcasts app errors and playing ads with ad-free Wondery+ subscription

I listen to a lot of podcasts on the Wondery channel using the Apple Podcasts app, and I saw the "subscribe for ad-free content" banner the other day so I subscribed. Almost as soon as I did, I noticed issues. The podcasts (all of them on Wondery, but not other networks or random one-offs) will stop playing at random times during episodes and I'll get an error message saying something like "Content cannot be played right now. Try again later." I usually have to wait several days before I can play the content even if I force quit the app and open it again.

This morning after this happened again, I signed out of Apple Podcasts, fully quit/closed the app, then reopened it and signed back in. I was able to resume the episode, but now I am getting ads on every single Wondery+ podcast and episode I listen to! I reached out to Wondery and they told me that because I subscribed via Apple Podcasts, there's nothing they can do to help me. They did mention that Apple does require some ads on certain podcasts despite the "ad-free" promise, but I'm hearing ads in every single podcast episode on every single show I listen to now. That is not how it was before I signed out/back in again.

My Apple Subscriptions does show that I am still subscribed to the Wondery+ subscription (and I have more than 10 days before it automatically renews), so I'm kind of stumped. Wondery is firm on not being able to help me, and states that it's an Apple issue that I need to resolve with them. I'm just not sure how.