tolian21

My trial will end in a month, looking to renew. Only want music. I hear you can negotiate it to $80 a year? Is it still valid. They called me and told me its 160 for music only, I laughed at them.

Robert_J

Try the different XM forums. They will have the best ways to negotiate a rate. I used to go to xmfan dot com a lot.

garsarno

Negotiated a $80 for the year rate when my wife called Sirius XM, thinking that we had a discount because we already have a subscription. WRONG. The Ford Fusion we pay for is Sirius, the Lexus is XM. The salesperson said that even though there would be two, they are separate. When she requested that we cancel the Sirius one, we were transferred to a supervisor that gave us the $80 rate for the Lexus, provided we pay for it via credit card right then. And a $75 rate for the Fusion. She agreed and went with it.

RickC5

Be sure to ask about long-term rates too. I recently got three years for $220, about $6.10/month.

Also ask about specials or family discounts (2 radios or more) or any other "deal" they may have available.

Say hello to Mohammed in Cairo for me.

LexBob2

I renewed a while back for the $77 annual rate (radio only, no Traffic or Weather) after my previous subscription had expired. This $77 rate was around for a while and it sounds like it's gone up a bit since then. You need to either let it expire and call them to see if they have any special rates for a new subscription, or call their cusyomer retention dept. and threaten to cancel if they don't have a better rate.

John U

If you don't like what you hear....hang up and call back later until you get what you want.

MadMax96

The XM folks are relentless. Our trial has been up since July on my wife's Highlander and I continue to get mail and phone calls. If you miss their call, they won't leave a message.. but they'll call like every day for a week.

At one point they were offering me 50% off the yearly rate but I still declined because I just couldn't bring myself to pay for radio. What's the point of 100+ station if I find myself only listening to about 4 or 5 of them? It's a tough sell when the car already has a usb port with iPod control.

RickC5

You're absolutely right, but we have no ipods (hard to believe isn't it?) and there's not much storage space for big CD albums. We have about 10-12 stations we regularly listen to, and on long trips we experiment to see if there are any other interesting stations to listen to. Great to have no ads.

garsarno

I enjoy Fox news and my wife enjoys MLB channels.

Diogenes

The trial subscription on my A4 expired in mid December. I tried to get a deal from XM but they insisted on the regular price. I declined to renew. On Dec 30 they called and offered me the $77 rate which with some additional royalty fees came to about $85. A few weeks later I received a mailler offering the $77 rate. Don't renew, sit tight and let them come to you.

Robert_J

What's the point for paying for TV when you only watch a handful of what is available on cable or satellite? Those 3 or 4 channels you can get via the antenna should be enough.

I've looked at my XM listening habits and I listen to 5 channels on the weekends and 3 during the week. But I enjoy them much more than terrestrial radio. I get to hear new music now rather than 20 years from now when it becomes Classic Rock and is played on my local station. Finally, these stations go with me everywhere. When we go visit family, my only choices would be "both kinds - country and western" (Trivia - what movie is that from?) but not now.

MadMax96

The quote is from Blues Brothers (one of the greatest movies of all time I might add)
Clip

TV is a bit different - with a DVR, I can record all sorts of things and watch when I want... this goes for my whole family, not just me. Being able to queue up any show for my 4 yr old is a godsend.

An XM subscription is more of a personal thing. We got a great value out of it years ago when my wife had an XM tuner (Skyfi) that fit in the dock in her old car.. her commute was an hour each way and then the unit plugged into a boom box which she could listen to all day at work. We also listed to it on another dock on our home stereo system. Having it isolated to one vehicle just isn't worth it unless you're in your car a lot - which we aren't anymore.

I MIGHT have considered a subscription if they gave a smokin deal for two vehicles... which they don't.

If anyone noticed, there was a free preview of XM again that ended on Tuesday. They also had the free preview during the week of Thanksgiving - which worked out awesome for our road trip to Oklahoma. It wasn't all the channels - but probably 30 or so.

Heckler

iTrader: (1)

That is a good rate ^^^ . I just signed up for $95.00 for a year and I am happy with that.

Like he said you just have to keep saying no and eventually they will dig deeper and give you a better deal.

redlight30

I called today and got the top XM package with sirius stations plus nav traffic for $125 for a year after several phone calls while being very nice all along. Just stay patient and you will more than likely get what you want.

Robert_J

I have three high def, dual tuner DVRs in my equipment rack. I can record 6 things at once from a combination of satellite and OTA. But if you look at my different recordings, I use less than 20 channels on a regular basis....But with a programming guide, I can see what is coming up. That's one thing that would be great with XM then I could switch channels as needed.

Speaking of SkyFi, I'm listening to one now. I work from home and that one goes between my office, my car and the home theater. It does have a feature where you can put in a song or artist name and it will switch stations when that name appears on a different channel.