XM subscription pricing

Welcome to dealing with one of the truly disreputable/sleazy major companies currently doing business in America today. Caveat Emptor!

 

I took advantage of this deal today. So it's still in effect.

Happy Holidays.

 

I bought in on the $77/year; yes, on top of that there's $11 for royalty fees. On top of that there was another $14 bucks that appeared on my Visa. I contested that and the $14 was dropped......

 

They offered me the 77/year or 14.00 "I think it was" for 5 more months.....didn't take either..... they never called me once by phone only mail correspondence.

I'm not in the mood anymore so I declined.

 

I am in the market for a Prius 5. I just sold my classic 03 that I had installed the wiring and antenna for Sirius Radio in early Jan '10. Does anyone know if XM will work with a Sirius subscriber? I believe that the two companies have merged.

 

I don't think so. It is the strangest merger I have ever heard of. They still have separate programming, although they overlap on most of their channels and they have separate pricing and separate ( or what appears to be separate) call centers. You can't add an XM subscription to a Sirius subscription. I have a lifetime and two other radios on Sirius but I couldn't add on my XM from my Prius, I had to open another acount! You can get a lifetime on Sirius, I am not sure if you can on XM. Some people are paying $20 per month for XM, some are paying $77 per year. It is just weird and I am sure it is done to maximize profits (or more accurately to minimize massive losses).

Read the threads here and you can probably figure it out as well as anyone.

 

Anyone remember Compuserve and AOL subscriptions? Same deal - they have one price which is published, another price if you call them, and another price if you call to cancel (they really don't want you to cancel). And which price you get still depends on how much they think they can get from you.

I had XM in the past (it was a gift) and didn't want to renew because it was too expensive - when I called to cancel, they offered a rate that was about 50% cheaper than published. Although I would have signed up if that was the published price, I was too shocked (and pissed off) to stay at that point.

I'm really surprised they haven't come down a lot more - since it is more or less a broadcast system, their expenses per customer go down the more customers they have, so they could charge $1/month and still be very profitable. But alas, they have a monopoly now thanks to the "let the market decide" approach of the previous administration's regulartory appointees, so they can charge whatever they want.

 

Yep.. I've been saying that too...... it would be one thing if there were no commercials, but they want paid on both ends of the stick and think they can play like the cable and satellite TV companies do.....

Lets see...... when I pay my satellite TV bill... I get video "and" sound, every member of my family can watch and enjoy and it usually on for several hours every day.

With XM radio... one person enjoys "me" while I drive to work and then back..... I can't stay in touch with relavant local issues because its so global.
Even my cable or satellite TV has local channels to keep that from happening.

When other people are in the car, I usually turn off the radio so we can talk.

I just don't have the time invested to have a need to pay.

I have my favorite free talk show station and a mirad of other choices with commercials?.. why should i pay for more commercials?

They say they don't have much, but they do if your one a popular station.... they charge as much as they can get away with... as much as the market will bear for that station with constant evaluations so to not choke the goose they lays the golden eggs.

They already choked this goose..... I passed up 14.00 for 5 months because I too was pissed at the whole thing.
I never got a phone call BTW.. only mail correspondence.

They can keep their commercials... for the brief time I'm in the car, I don't want a majority of that to be listening lame commercials that that treat you like an idiot and repeat their phone number eight times like they are forcing peas down your throat whether you want them or not......... not what I'm paying for.

Oh, and did I say I don't like commercials?......

Rant over.

 

Well said! I've had a subscription on a truck I drive since late '04, was going to drop it and add the Prius, but now I'm not so sure I'll keep either. I am retired and make trips where the "stability" of the same station is a plus, but am beginning to believe it isn't worth all they want. Also I don't want to have to "duke it out with them" every so often to get it at a price I feel is fair, because their published price sure isn't!

 

All they have to do is kill commercials but that still won't be as big a draw as simply lowering the price and market it well.

There are enough radios out now that will receive it, a decent price would make them much more money from many that a little from few.

In fact, IMO if they just made it "free" they could get rid of tons of office staff overhead, book keeping, and head hunters.

They could just live off of commercials alone as they could charge much more as the market would become much more saturated and be a global market or at least "country wide". There is a reason the commercials cost so much to advertise during the super bowl.

Its a catch 22.... they have the exposure of area of sq miles covered as their leverage... if they would just kill the price they would have a massive audience whereby to sell commercials too.

Google didn't become great by charging us to use their services.... And they are still smart enough to know what made them great will make them greater and they still don't charge!!!!
Services are free to the customer and the vendors pay to reach all those customers.... very simple concept that's causing Google to take over the world....

You give a little and get a lot.... but companies that can't see past their own nose for all their greed fail.

All companies have start up costs... but they want their money instantly without an audience first.

I can't help it if they are fools.. at least I'm free to say no. And they are free to go broke because they won't get a clue.

 

I have been using the 90 day trial for several weeks and I don't plan to subscribe.
I have been mostly listening to talk/news stations such as CNN, HLN, Fox News etc and there are so many ads that it's annoying. My commute isn't that long. Might as well listen to local radio to hear so many ads. It's really annoying channel surfing with so few presets in relation to the total number of channels and the manual tuning knob so tedious to use to go up and down the list of channels.
I don't plan to drive cross country or care about listening to the same station the entire trip even if I did. For new music, I'd rather just buy new tracks to keep every month than pay for satellite music. I can listen to Pandora to discover new tracks or follow the music singles and album charts if I cared to follow what's new and hot.
Since I listen to mostly talk on my commute anyway, I think I'll go back to podcasts when the trial runs out. My next phone will probably be an iPhone and there are many podcast and music apps that will make it easy to find something to listen to.

 

Could you repost this telephone number?

 

1-800-408-2196 - I called this number and got 90 days trial on my used 2008 prius. I found the info on slickdeals.net ...

 

I would ask for the 5 mos first "5 months for $3.99 per month - $19.95 total"
XM radio - $19.95 for 5 months (applied to 2 radios!) [Archive] - SlickDeals.net Forums

I threw it away.. but it seems like I was offered 14.99 for the same thing... but could be wrong.. it could have been 19.99

 

I currently have a Sirius subscription and will be getting my Prius 2010 in 8 days. Would love to have a Sirius Sat connection instead of XM. I heard that XM and Sirius have merged. Is a switch to Sirius possible?

 

Anything is possible if money is no object. The module which is attached to our radios is an XM module. It is not a Sirius model. There are people who sell modules that let Sirius work on Toyota's (and Lexus'), but they are kind of tricky sometimes. The merger is very strange. I, too, have a Sirius subscription, in fact I have three of them, including one lifetime. That didn't mean squat to the XM person I spoke to when activating my radio. Just look at this thread and get the best price you see for XM and the best of sirius and that will work.

They seem to be blending their services, but they do not really have the same programming and they have different sales people and different front offices. I just paid and forgot about it. Not worth losing any sleep over. Life is too short.

 

http://www.xmradio.com/pdf/channel_guide.pdf

this list the station you get, and the sirrus stations that are a premium. If you have the navigation package, there is a sattelite traffic package as well, not sure how accurate it is for your area. You can get the trial and see if the traffic works.

 

I've thrown away all previous mailing too but got this one today.

77 for the year or 19.99 for five months. Odd that the lesser months is the better deal...

Honestly, the ipod interface is so hard to use that I have all but given up on music in my car. I think I'm going to spring for the XM and call it a mental health expense.

 

That may be because when the 5 months are up they plan on charging you the full price so if you renew they will get more for the year. I didn't do the arithmetic but I think it works out that way.