For those of you who are much more savvy about this, please accept my apology for posting yet another one of these remedial threads.
We have internet/TV/phone from Frontier (formerly Verizon Fios) for what had been $180 or so per month. No gaming. My 6-year-old likes the My Little Pony shows, and my wife watches the soap operas on Telemundo. For me personally, I could do without TV, as I can get the news on my computer, along with the Yankee games via the MLB package (I'm out of market).
As these companies are wont to do, they recently bumped my bill from $180 to $260 monthly. I've paid it the last few cycles because I've been putting off the inevitable 1hr soulless telephone experience with the call center in Manila.
An email came in that the bill is going to $277, so tonight was the phone call.
Call center was closed, so I spent too much time negotiating online through their cyberchat option. The best price they are able to offer is $175 per month with a "speed upgrade" to 50/50mbps from whatever we currently have. Taxes and fees, curiously, can not be calculated by the call center, but they estimate $30 or so, for a total of $205.
Is this out of line?
Do I have other options?
Thanks...
As for the Spanish soaps, get decent TV antenna and pending how close ty ou are to the towers in your area, you should get a fair amount of those over the air stations for free.
Then, as long as you have Netflix ($10 per month) they have My Little Pony for your 6 year old in addition to a ton of kids programming.
In any event, definitely make sure you speak to the company and negotiate, or even threaten to leave. I think $100 a month is probably reasonable to pay for TV/Internet/Phone, although obviously you could do a lot better. Around $100-150 should be more than generous on your part.
Lifehacker: Loyal customers pay more for cable - ( New Window )
Phone -you can get Ooma. It's basically a thing that you plug into your internet and then you can port your number over to this if you still want a landline. My better half insisted on the landline and then this is what we did. Easy peasy.
TV - There's lots of antenna options and more and more streaming services available. I don't know about Telemundo. But once you ditch the live tv you can try all the services out. They all have a one week free trial. You just really need a fire stick or apple tv or something and you're good to go. I've changed my tv provider lots of times but settled on DirecTV Now and I'm happy. It's got more stuff than I need but really has Fox for the Giants, YES for Yanks and MSG for my moronic Knicks.
Roku stick $60 (DirectvNOW was offering a free one for signing up for service)
MagicJack phone service (VoIP) is about $30 per year. Same service as the cable co.
MagicJack - ( New Window )
I managed to get my bill to $180/mo and that's with gigabit ethernet and 4 sets. Fish around on slickdeals.net for some strategies, in particular which package might be optimal for you. Best thing to do (if you're not under contract, which makes all this moot) is to claim you're switching to cable, and their introductory rates in your area are far less than FiOS (and also point out what they offer for new FiOS customers in your area).
We cut the cord about 10 years ago and don't really miss it. You become reliant on the different services that you subscribe to (HBO Go, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Sling, Youtube TV, there are tons of them now) but even if you subscribe to 2 or 3 or 4 of them, it's probably still going to come in significantly lower than what you're paying now.
Most cable companies will offer bundled discounts if you take the landline. Some include the landline for "free" (by inflating the price of the other services).
The key to receiving a good rate is constantly switching between providers. It's inconvenient and a hassle, but really will save you a lot of money in the long run. Loyal/ lazy customers are typically on "auto-pilot" and will get absolutely raped in price...it's a really shitty industry and practice.
Negotiating is fine, but the best value is to cancel outright and go to a new provider. Your old provider will eventually agree to put you on their "new customer" pricing.
Charter refused to give me a $15/month discount, so I left them.
Within the month of cancelling they were willing to give me "new customer" pricing at a $60/month discount.
Imagine, I would have been happy with $15/month discount but they stood their ground. Now they lost everything and are offering me a much deeper discount.
Negotiating is fine, but the best value is to cancel outright and go to a new provider. Your old provider will eventually agree to put you on their "new customer" pricing.
Charter refused to give me a $15/month discount, so I left them.
Within the month of cancelling they were willing to give me "new customer" pricing at a $60/month discount.
Imagine, I would have been happy with $15/month discount but they stood their ground. Now they lost everything and are offering me a much deeper discount.
Car insurance companies also usually punish loyalty, so I've heard.
Yeah, they will keep you on the same rate plan and conveniently "forget" to review your policy for savings.
You need to ask them annually to review your policy.
Of course, if you get a ticket/ accident, they will immediately raise your rates.