Y’know, we’ve been getting the Comcast “promo rate” for over two years now. Every time it “expires”, Mr Roo calls them and gives them a long sob story about how he really really loves Comcast, but I’m such a sourpuss, and want to go to Dish. (He tortures time-share salesmen for fun and profit in this spare time - and he’s really good at it.) They ALWAYS extend the rate for somewher between three and six months. Last time we got free HBO for six months too.
I think if you’re willing to go through this charade every so often, you can get the promo rate pretty much indefinitely.
Ok, the results are in! The winners are those who chose…
A+!
Ok, I know, there was no “A+” on the list, but the end result is even better than I was originally looking for.
It starts out closer to a “B” – they knocked the monthly cable rate back down to the promo rate. They wouldn’t give me the Sports Entertainment Package for free (she said they had no code for that), but they do have a code that will get it to me for $1.95/month. Ok, fine…not thrilled about having to pay for just one channel, but from what I’ve read, the NFL was being pretty damn unreasonable to the cable companies about how much they were charging to let them carry the station. The money has to come from somewhere. Anyway…
Sold. I’d have been happy with that. But whenever I’m on the line with the retention department, I always toss out that magical question: “Got any other discounts you can offer me?” This is where we venture into A+Land.
In addition to the above deal, they also knocked $9.99/month off our internet bill, plus put a $50.00 credit on the account. Score!
All told, a 12-month savings of $312.80 over not calling them up and just accepting Option D. Woohoo!
Actually, the internet discount is a double-score. I telecommute, so my company pays for the internet portion of my bill. Every month, they automatically put an extra $43.00 in my paycheck to cover what will now be a $33.00 bill.
Sure it seems like small potatoes now, but it adds up. $10 over the course of a year is, like, $100! In a thousand years, that’s gonna be some serious cash and your company’s gonna notice. They’ll arrest you and you’ll be spending your twilight years learning to play raquetball in a minimum security here’s-some-quilted-two-ply-for-your-ass prison.
I couldn’t derive much satisfaction from walking into my local office and telling them to pound sand. My reasoning is that the people working in my local office aren’t responsible for Comcast policies or pricing, so what did they do wrong? That’s the trouble with big non-local companies, there’s no one person you can yell at that’s actually responsible for the problems.
I don’t even have Comcast and I’m reading this thread getting all riled up and hating the hell out of Comcast and you come in and finish it off with how they just gave you $300 worth of free crap and now I don’t know what to think!
I had an unexpected good experience while they were still Time-Warner, but gearing up for the switchover…
They were dropping three of the Encore movie channels from their service. We didn’t have any premium channels at all, just the basic service. We also have our phone and internet with them.
So I called to drop the land line (which we rarely use) and add the HBO package. They lowered our monthly bill, gave us ALL the premium movie channels for free, and we get to keep the phone! Offer is good for one year only. So when the year is up, I will call to renegotiate… A++!!!
I see what you’re saying. I knew the guy at the local office. He was actually helpful one of the times I had problems with Comcrap. When I said “tell them to pound sand” I of course meant the big bad cable company who managed to buy up all their competition in my area and who can now charge whatever they want and offer crappy service at an inflated price. I have and had no personal beef with the fellow at the store. It’s his employer that I despised, and he was aware of that.