Quick Tips
Another Bill “Negotiation” Win! Cutting Our Sirius XM Fee
Earlier this month, I shared the story of how I managed to instantly save money on my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Basically, by going through the steps to cancel, I was presented with a deal that I could live with. Well, just today, I had a similar experience with another recurring biller: Sirius XM.
To be honest, we don’t listen to Sirius XM as much as we used to. Even though we could listen online, it’s usually an activity reserved for driving. And, with both of us working from home, we don’t spend too much time in the car these days (aside from road trips). Yet, we both still enjoy having the service overall.
That’s why, last year, I used Rocket Money to have our bill negotiated. I opted for this because, in the past (for my previous account), I’d had to call Sirius XM to cancel as there wasn’t an online option. So, even though I had to pay Rocket 40% of my savings, it was still worth it.
Unfortunately, the deal they got me ended this month — which I noticed when my Amex was charged $23 for the month. Initially, I figured I’d let Rocket do their thing again, but I decided to log into Sirius instead. To my surprise, this time around, I saw that I could cancel by chat.
When the rep came on, I told them that we wanted to cancel because we simply didn’t use the service enough to justify the cost. I even mentioned that we were previously on a promo rate that had expired. Literal seconds later, they came back with an offer that pretty much matched what we had before: $5.99 (plus fees) per month for 12 months. Moreover, they’d apply the payment we just made to our balance, meaning that we won’t have to pay again for a couple of months. Although I considered pushing to see if I could do even better, I went ahead and accepted this deal, closing out the conversation in under five minutes.
In the end, this quick chat brought our monthly fee down from $23.05 to just $7.27. Plus, unlike last time, I didn’t have to share these savings with anyone else. That said, depending on what the process is with other companies, I might still use Rocket Money to negotiate certain bills in the future.
All in all, this was another great reminder that it doesn’t hurt to ask if savings are possible. In many cases, companies would rather keep you as a customer paying less than lose you altogether. Of course, since many of these discounts come in the form of 12-month promos, you may need to go through the process again when the year is up (as happened here). But, by staying vigilant — and being ready to cancel if need be — you might just end up scoring yourself a deal.
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