How I reduce my Dad’s satellite TV bill by about 45%.

by Tweetystraw

Four years ago, one of my siblings alerted me that my Dad’s satellite TV bill had crept up to about $160/month. A single premium channel (to get his Westerns,) but otherwise, not Hong specials He lives in a rural area without a cable alternative, so we looked at new-customer incentives from the other main satellite TV provider.

My Dad is (now) 82, 77 at the time, and I really didn’t want to put him through learning a whole new system. But, advised him that the competitor offered the same channels for about half the price, and that we should explore it, & he agreed.

Contacted his current provider to see if they could match the introductory price of their competitor, they would only come down 15%. Thanked them, hung up, discussed with Dad, and called them back to cancel.

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Called back, got into their cancellation queue, and got a live person very quickly. I was insistent that Dad was extremely happy with his service, but that he is retired on a fixed income, and that we were canceling solely on price. After a 4-minute “let me talk to my manager” wait, they agreed to nearly match the 2-year introductory price of their main (and only) competitor. The discount was good for one year. Dad got his bill slashed from $160 to $90.

One year later, his bill reverted to $160, as they said it would. We called back in through the cancel queue, went through the same as outlined above, and they again reduced the price to match their competitor’s introductory price. We’ve done it successive years since. I’m sure the account notes note that we’re making the same ask each year, but the metrics in the “cancel my service queue” appear to offer those staff members very different options on discounts.

My main takeaways: When you make this call, you have to be very ready and willing to actually walk away and start with a new provider. Have on hand all the current info on competitor’s intro offers. And, most of all, always be extremely polite and focus on price as the sole reason for moving on.

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