Another $105 In Easy Discounts From Comcast Cable
Since I already wrung a few extra dollars from my cell phone bill with the Sprint SERO plan, I figured I’d try the same with another monthly expense - Cable TV and Broadband internet access with Comcast. Even though I know there are slightly cheaper options than Comcast in my area (satellite and DSL), I like being able to use my existing TiVo and the speed of Cable internet. To compensate, I try to get all the discounts possible.
In the past, I’ve already haggled $138 off my cable bill over six months. Then when I had to move, instead of moving my service, I canceled and signed up again in order to take advantage of their new customer promotions. This saved me another $250 including the free modem.
My discount expired a few months ago, and I’ve been paying full price without really thinking about it. But I just got notice of another rate hike yesterday, and my new bill is now barely under $100! Time for another call to Comcast. Here’s how the conversation went:
Comcast:How can I help you today?
Me: Hi, I’ve been a customer for a while now, and I’ve been seeing commercials for [competitor's name] offering DSL for [price less than Comcast]. I’ve also noticed that you are offering new customers $19.99/month for High-speed internet. Is there any way you can offer that to me as well?
Comcast: Sure, let me check. [on hold] Yes, it shows you are eligible for a discount of $10 a month for 6 months. We can’t match [competitor's name] because their DSL is slower than our service.
Me: Okay, great. What about TV? Am I eligible for any discounts there?
Comcast: Yes, you can get $15 off for 3 months. I have applied these to your account.
With a 10-minute phone call, I just saved another $105 ($60+$45) off of retail. And from the way she talked, it seemed like the computer has already pre-approved each customer for certain levels of discounts. If you’re paying full price, free money may be sitting there waiting for you to claim it! You don’t even need to employ any verbal ninja skills or Jedi mind-tricks.
I’m sure other cable providers have similar promotions. You can compare your currently available offers from Comcast, AT&T, TimeWarner, Verizon, etc. at BroadbandNational, using your address and phone number.
Find more in Frugal Living | 5/1/07, 12:52am | Trackback
May 1st, 2007 at 1:09 am
Which department did you talk to? In my experience, the best people have always been the sales department, even if you’re already a customer. Comcast tech support and billing have been of no help to me when complaining about the bill.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:11 am
Hmm… I think it was Billing. I had to do the “hard line” haggle a few years ago ($138 link above), but this time it was easy. I can see how Sales would be a better bet, though.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:13 am
This works, but you need to be a customer for a certain period of time. I signed up in November of 2005, but when I went back in the Summer of 2006, they said I had to be out of my original special offer for a few months. I think I became eligible again in November 2006.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:17 am
I agree, at least for the auto-approved discounts. I think it’s at least 3 months, maybe up to 6? I don’t think it’s been six months for me though. If you can’t remember, that’s a good rule of thumb to call.
May 1st, 2007 at 5:04 am
Another Comcast trick I found is to always choose the option for cancelling your account even if that is not your intention. You’ll spend less time on hold this way, as they take those calls faster.
Worked last time I called about 3 months ago.
May 1st, 2007 at 6:06 am
I live in the southern part of Connecticut and because our cable company (Adelphia) went bankrupt Comcast bought the customers in my area and immediately started charging $100 more per month for the services i already had so because of that I switched to Dish Network. I still use my two tivo (series 2) I have found that all you need to do is ask for the standalone receivers so they don’t stick you with one of those dual tuner boxes, and that only really matters becasue the tivo needs to be able to send the IR signals to the box… If you are still thinking of switching to satellite i can confirm that the tivo will work with both the Dish Network 301 and 311 receivers.
May 1st, 2007 at 6:29 am
It has worked every time when I have tried(3 times). I do usually need to pay full price for a a few months before I can call back.
I also agree with choosing the options for canceling, and would add that you can usually hold out for better deals. I would say “no that is not enough to keep me as customer”, and they would sweeten the deal a little. Last time, I turned down three offers, until I found one that I was happy with.
-TheHappyRock
May 1st, 2007 at 7:40 am
Great tip! We just downgraded to the $10 basic a couple months ago and haven’t missed it at all! We’ve been trying to find a way to reduce our internet expenses. DSL isn’t really feasible because we don’t want to drop our speed and we don’t have a landline. We looked into wireless broadband from clearwire.com which is available in our area, but after reading the online reviews, we were scared away–too many horror stories.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:16 am
For 3 years we never pay Comcast full price. We had HSI with the 6-month promo 19.99/mo extended a few times, lasting for about 2.5 years. The current deal we have is to digital cable (with some custom channel) + HSI for $97/mo. That comes down to regular price for both HSI and basic cable, plus $19 for the basic digital cable and free digital converter. The rep looked at our price for the previous six months and gave us this deal. Had to call a few times before getting a nice rep. She even insisted to give us a few extra digital channels, just something nice for the parents she said after hearing the kids in the background.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:48 am
I am a comcast customer just like you and tried the same thing a few months back. They did NOT give me ANY kind of discount. This is because of the six month rule, as said above. Additionally, I get mailers to sign up for comcast internet all the time. They all say:
“New High-Speed customers only or former residential customers with accounts in good standing who haven’t had service for the last 120 days.”
May 1st, 2007 at 9:03 am
Went to billing dept and tried them. Didn’t work for me. They said no to any discounts but they said if I upgraded to digital cable (at a higher monthly cost) they could give me a slight discount (Yep, I’m cheap, I have analog). I already had their discounts from @ a year ago so maybe that counted against me. I’ll probably try sales or the cancel line in a couple days and if they don’t, I might just switch to someone else, since they raised my bill a little over 5% in January
May 1st, 2007 at 11:02 am
I called comcast and chose the Cancel option. They eventually offered $24.99/month for 6 months. I’ve been paying ~$43/month for cable internet, which amounts to $18/month savings. For 6 months, this is total of $108 in savings. Way to go!
May 1st, 2007 at 11:05 am
I’ve set up an event schedule on my yahoo calendar to remind me to do the same call again after 6 months, maybe will use sales option instead of cancel option line.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:20 am
I’m sure I’ll get flamed for this, but have you considered rabbit ears? I made the switch a couple months ago, and used the first year’s savings to buy a couple PC tuner cards and 500GB hard drives. Now I have a 1TB HD DVR with no monthly fees. I supplement this with a $6/mo Blockbuster online subscription that gets me up to 5 movies/mo (2/mo + 2 trades + monthly printable coupon). In addition to movies, you can rent just about any series that you can find on extended cable or premium channels within a couple months of their airing without commercials. I get my news online anyway. The only thing I miss are live sporting events on ESPN or regional cable sports channels, but that’s what friends and sports bars are for.
Alot depends on your geography, but if you are lucky like me and still have an old antenna on your house, or live on a hill and have an old set of rabbit ears (with UHF loop), it’s a piece of cake. This site will tell you what direction the stations are from your house and estimate what size antenna you’ll need:
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
You don’t even need a new HDTV or a techie media center, as you can get a set-top tuner that downgrades the signal to your existing tv. Heck Walmart has one with a built-in DVD recorder for $170:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog.....id=5663208
May 1st, 2007 at 8:51 pm
There were no discounts for me about a month ago, but when I added two CableCARDs (LOVE the S3 TiVo) Comcast loused up my bill by adding a bunch of extraneous HD and “digital outlet” fees.
I called in, got them to take all the wrong fees off, then mentioned I’d seen a promo on their website for digital silver plus HBO for $49.99/mo for 12 months — that’s practically the same price as “regular” cable is now. The rep made a point of saying “Normally we won’t do this since that is for new customers, but since you’re a loyal customer and since you had this issue today, we’ll give you the promotion.” He said that at least three times, but I bet if you call in with an offer you saw on the Internet they might pony that one up too.
Always check the website to see what offers are available! I’m now paying about $65 instead of $100 (I get Internet through SBC instead) and I’m pleased.
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:51 pm
This actually worked for me on the 2nd try! First time I spoke with a girl on the phone and she said there was nothing available. That’s when I called the billing department. The 2nd time I called the cancellation department and a guy lowered my bill a lot. They call it “market offers” and they basically say that they can lower your digital cable bill and internet bill for the next 6 months. Basically keep calling them every 6 months and you will receive some type of discount on your service.
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:11 am
I have the service from Charter. I called them in March, two months after the price hike. My bill went down from $53 to $19.95 for the next 6 months. I have been using Zenith UHF Digital Indoor Antenna
to OTA tv reception Recently they had a promotion for basic cable free for 6 months, and I signed up for that as well.
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:12 am
I have the service from Charter. I called them in March, two months after the price hike. My bill went down from $53 to $19.95 for the next 6 months. I have been using Zenith UHF Digital Indoor Antenna
to OTA tv reception Recently they had a promotion for basic cable free for 6 months, and I signed up for that as well.
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:17 pm
I’ve been trying to get military members to call up and see how much money they can save by being in the military. The fact is that most people don’t do it because they are too lazy. Great post and hopefully people start calling. You can do the same thing with your insurance company too.
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:26 pm
I just moved at the beginning of April. I live in Southern California and have Cox Cable. I called them with 2 advertisments in hand for satellite TV offers that offered $19.95/mo - $39.95/mo for 100+ channels including HD DVR Boxes and more HD Channels. I told them I was thinking about canceling so they transferred me to a cancelation specialist. The cancelation specialist was a woman working out of her home. She talked for 45 minutes. We discussed the good and bad of satellite and other things such as Internet. They reduced my $100/mo cable bill to $75/mo (that includes by 6MB High Speed Connection). My Internet is still only $19.95 but that special ends in October. She said after a 30 day period of paying full price, simply call back and tell them you want the $19.95/mo price and you’ll get it again for 6mos - 12mos. Good luck everyone!
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Does any one have any tricks for Direct TV? The only thing that I have done was ask for showtime and another premium channel for free for 6 months. Any other suggestions on cutting down the actual price?
May 4th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Directv offered $10 off each month when you commit for them for a certain period (a year or six months?). Since I know we are not going to jump, I committed to them.
May 4th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Thanks for the reminder — this saved me $20/month for the next 6 months ( I have their Internet service only).
May 5th, 2007 at 5:09 am
still can’t believe this!! got offered $19.99 for a year
unbelievable!! amazed!!
May 5th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
We just tried your “script.” Got our cable tv and internet bill lowered $46 a month for 12 months. Thanks!
May 5th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Pretty sweet!
May 5th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Yes, we also called on the weekend so the call would go to Baltimore instead of the county where we live. My experience has been that the local cable customer service is less likely to give you a reduction in your rate. Of course I had my wife call! I know many would say we are still paying too much with digital, hd package, cable modem @6megabit rate. But from $142 to $96 a month is awesome!
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:30 am
I called just yesterday. I’ve been thinking of canceling my cable for a while now, or at the very least reducing it. I told them upfront it is too expensive, and I would be at the least reducing my service level. I have to have highspeed, its not an option to cancel it. I don’t have a home phone, so DSL isn’t an option either. So the minimum full price I can pay is $45/mo.
I used to pay $126/mo for digital cable, DVR service, and Cable Modem. They knocked it down to $102 for six months, saving me almost $150 dollars over the next six months. That is $10 off the cable and $15 dollars off the internet each month once tax is in there. I’ll be trying to slowly reign in my cable usage and hopefully by the end of the six months I will either cancel outright or move to absolute basic cable for $10 a month.
July 16th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Yep, that stuff works. I just called comcast, I have the internet and cable and together it costs me $107 a month. So I just did exactly what you said:
Me: Hey, I’m thinkin about switching to DSL, but I wanted to see if you can offer me any discounts so that I’ll stay.
Lady: Just a second. (Transfers me to the retention department).
Guy: So you’re thinkin about switching to DSL? You know that’s pretty slow right?
Me: Yeah, I had it in college it was ok.
Guy: Ok, yeah it appears you’re eligible for a discount. How does 6 months at 29.99 sounds?
Me: That’s good. I’m also thinking of cancelling my cable, is there anything you can do for me there?
Guy: What’s the problem, you don’t watch it enough or you watch it too much?
Me: Yeah either too much or not enough. So I don’t know if I want it.
Anyway, so that’s all it took and he lowered my total bill to $74 for 6 months. So with a 5 minute call I saved $33/month, or $198 total.
August 6th, 2007 at 7:37 am
This idea continues to help me save money. I tried it last year and saved over $60 with a discount at Knology vs. Comcast ads. Then they gave me a $3 discount ever since!
Now I called again to get more discounts since it has been about a year. I could have gotten more services for just a little more money, but I opted for the $15 off per bill for 6 months. Thats $90 off for this year’s service for just calling and telling them I was going to cancel service since they wouldn’t price-match competitor ads. Thanks.
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Just called Time Warner Cable and it was a no go. Nothing they could do, so I specifically asked if this was the Retention department and they said no, that I’d have to call back before 9pm.
I’m going to try again tomorrow, but I’m not holding out much hope.
September 12th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
A note about Time Warner - they will offer you cheaper, reduced-speed service if you threaten to cancel. My roommate & I did this just after signing up for service and got a $10 discount (from $45 to $35, if I remember correctly). I just called in again and tried everything Jonathan has suggested - telling them I was going with DSL, mentioning that I’d seen a $19.99 offer for new customers, and threatening to cancel. They offered a still slower service that’s $10 cheaper - so my bill is now down to $24.99 from the original price of $40. The speed of my current service is 768 kbps. I anticipate this being plenty fast for my purposes.
By the way, I spoke with the folks who pick up the phone when you go through their little menu and tell em you want to cancel your service.
November 1st, 2007 at 6:26 am
just tried this with comcast, they offered me 19.99 for 3 months on internet, no discount on cable for a 3+ year customer after i threatened to cancel. she didn’t sound the least bit interested in keeping the business.
will call again later today and hope for better luck.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:00 am
couldn’t wait any longer, and just tried calling again. had somewhat better results, since i went through billing this time instead of cancellations. got 19.99 internet for six months instead of three, and since they still didn’t offer me a cable discount, i switched to a lower package.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
I just had great success with Comcast. After adding a second hd box to our account at an additional $13 a month, I looked at our cable bill and noticed that we were spending $211 monthly on cable and internet! When I called Comcast this afternoon to cancel a couple premium channels, I selected the “downgrade service” option and was connected to a very kind Customer Service rep who got my bill down to $139 for the next 12 months. I just saved $864 over the course of a year!
December 13th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Just did it and saved $30/month for my same plan. I simply had to agree to a year long contract. This went almost too easy, the rep was extremely nice as well. FYI, I’ve been a customer for approx. 2 1/2 years.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
With my latest bill of $249.64(includes a $128 prior balance), I called 1-800-comcast and went through the cancellation process, transferred to a rep, where I then proceeded to ask to shut off my cable bill at the end of the month. He then asked why r u canceling?, and I said I was switching to Direct TV.
His immediate response was to promote their new phone cable internet for $99 price, to which I replied, no thanks as I already have a phone.
He proposed a special 6 month promotion for cable at 29.99(that’s 50% off) to which I responded gleefully and I made an extra point to sound like I was in disbelief. He then voluntarily offered to reduce my internet access as well to $19.99 for 6 months. So now my cable bill is $59.00/month versus $130 previously.
Also, he prorated my new rate effective last months and my new bill is only $169!!!! From $249.
Beware, I have a bunch of new premium channels as well with the new pricing included in the “package” I would expect these to increase my bill substantially after the 6 month probation period so watch out!!
January 18th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
…..6 month promotion period so watch out!!
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:32 pm
My bill just went from $84 a month for basic cable and high speed internet to 104$
any ideas?
what the heck!
April 7th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
hmmm….. i’ve had comcast hi-speed internet + basic cable ($42 + $16, approx $62 per month) for more than two years, always paid the full price.
after seeing these encouraging postings, i tried to call them for a discount today but no luck. i was tranfered multiple times from one rep to another and after 10 minutes on the phone, was nowhere.
they said the only promotion available was on triple play, which obviously i don’t want.
well, maybe i’ll try some other day when i’m bored.
thanks for the info, though
the_boss
April 16th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
here’s some advice from a comcast employee… switch your home phone over to comcast digital voice. reps will do anything for the phone sale.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Hi,
Thanks for the advice, I was paying $149 for internet, cable and phone, I just called and threaten to switch everything to Verizon including the cable and the rep offered me the package for $99 (basic cable with HBO, STARZ and SHOWTIME free) and no DVR charge ($13.95) for a year.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Are you all aware that by calling these companies and trying to get a deal, you are basically harassing people in their workplace? Do you go into McDonalds and try to get free burgers just because you have been going there for 20 years? You are a bucnh of cheap pricks that have no life except to use the telephone to try to scam corporations out of millions. I can’t wait to tell everyone I know who works for Comcast to say no to you when you call. If you go to crappy vios or sat then GOOD RIDDANCE. Comcast will save money if you scammers are gone anyway.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:49 am
To G,
Actually, no corporation will be losing any money on this deal. They are charging extremely high rates for services that only cost them pennies to provide once they’ve paid for the infrastructure. The reason they are able to offer these deals is because they can EASILY and COMPLETELY afford to do so. They purposely price their services higher than what they think people will pay so they can offer introductory and teaser rates and make the poor people who in most cases HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE IN COMPANY, think they’re getting a great deal!
If there was any sort of fair competition in this arena and it wasn’t so much of a monopoly then you might have a point. In other words, if these companies were cutting costs and streamlining and were still having to lower their profit margins, then may we should feel a little bit sorry for them. But, until that time, there is no reason to feel bad for a cable company. That’s laughable to say the least. There’s no reason to feel bad for any corporation! They all just want to squeeze every last cent that they can get out of you. Why should you care about them?
July 9th, 2008 at 1:23 am
G,
As a former McDonalds employee, I know there are people who walk in and try to scam us for free food. I think this is an excellent idea. Where a mcchicken costs a dollar for the consumers, cable is much much more. I am going to tell all of my friends.
July 12th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I tried calling comcast billiing and sales and customer support. None seemed to help. One said I could get HBO for 6 months free ($60 savings) but then switched me to get that done and the next woman said I couldn’t. So I said switch me to disconnect. The next guy basically gave me 6 months showtime free at 6 months and changed my plan to save me $50 a month for 6 months. It seemed like the best thing to do is say you want to cancel, then they give you better deals.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I called Comcast a few months ago as we have EVERYTHING through them. TV, Internet, and phone. Our promotion has just finished and now we are paying close to $165 a month for this package. They just apologized and said there is nothing they can do. This blog gives me hope.. i think i’ll try again and threaten to cancel this time.
July 30th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I have called Comcast (both billing and cancellation departments) several times over the last few days, threatening to cancel, nicely asking if there are any available discounts, etc. but it turns out that if you’re just coming off a 12-month promotion and haven’t paid even one month at full price, there’s nothing they can do except downgrade your service or offer you a “cheaper” plan that includes phone service, so it ends up being more expensive anyway.
I don’t know how all you folks got so lucky! Oh well. I’m going to suck it up and pay full price for a few months and then try again.
August 15th, 2008 at 7:47 am
I’m a new Comcast customer and got a good deal to set up. Previously, I was with Charter in Wisconsin and had them for about 7 years. Though it was like pulling teeth sometimes, I managed to keep a good promotion going throughout.
One thing is pretty key with these large companies… they have call centers all over the world and it can be hit and miss trying to understand who you’re talking to. I was actually TOLD by a local Charter rep to hang up and call back if I didn’t like the service I got, because I likely would get a different country and call center altogether!
Interestingly, with Charter, the different call centers seemed to have different offers sometimes too. It might be worth it to just call a few different times to see what you can get. It also helps (in general, just speaking with customer service) to make sure you have the name AND location of who you’re speaking with to refer to later.
November 10th, 2008 at 9:49 am
I also have the Time Warner cable + Road runner internet package, currently around 100$, and they said there was nothing they could do for me, that the package was already discounted. Has anyone with Time Warner had any luck?
December 20th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Ive been a “communist-cast” customer for a few years. Ive learned that when you make the call to disconnect, you’d better be armed and ready to do so. It helps to look into information with their competitors prior to making the call.
We were paying $116/mo for their 3 service promotion for 12 months. When it ended, the bill skyrocketed to $180/mo. I made the call and asked for a reduction. The lady basically told me she could reduce me by $5/mo. I laughed and told her that my next call would be to disconnect after I check with their competitors.
At the time, this was my only option since I didnt have DSL available and my only other move would be to Dish or Direct TV. I had no other options for high speed internet.
That evening I spent some time researching dish options, rates, etc and was armed and ready to disconnect or downgrade. I told my wife that we could simply reduce our “Communist Cast” service from 6mg to 1.5mg and keep the internet phone. This is an everyday $50 package through comcast. We dont do heavy downloading …. so 1.5 mg is still plenty fast for most general web browsing. We could then sign up for TV through Dish or DirectTV
I called and was quickly connected to a real helpful guy with comcast. I told him that I was calling to lower my monthly rate. He placed me on hold for several minutes while he searched their current offers. He came back and offered me a monthly bill of $106 ($10/mo less than I was already paying), I keep the 6mg internet service, phone and he even threw in free showtime. He even did it retroactive so that my last “higher” bill was applied as a credit towards the new rate. I was happy. I asked him if this was a 12 month offer or an everyday price. He told me to call back in 12 months and do the same thing.
I believe that one must first pay the high bill for one month …then call back and complain. If you wait 2 months, comcast knows that it isnt that important to you and may not offer a better deal. Also, since they provide my internet service, I dont know if they have the ability to see what sites I’ve recently visited. If so, while I was on hold, he could have seen that I was all over the dish network and direct TV sites the previous evening.
Just 1 week later, ATT came knocking on my door to tell me about their new high speed TV/Internet/Phone service in my neighborhood. It wasnt previously available. Now I know I have additional options when the 12 month special is up with Comcast.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
We only have Comcast internet - no cable TV or phone service. I called them and tried to get the discount, but it looks like they’ll only give it to you if you have more than one service (ex: both TV and internet) with them. Bummer…
January 24th, 2009 at 12:56 am
I’m a Comcast employee. Many of the tips that are on this page a are true. Comcast has a retention department (when you select the cancel option on the phone) and their job is to lower your bill to get you to stay with comcast. You can easily call at the end of each promotion and keep asking for a new one. Comcast would rather lose $30-$40 a month and keep you as a customer than to lose you all together when there are millions of other customers NOT calling to lower their bills and paying full price.
Like many people here have said all you have to make is a simple phone call and throw a competitor’s price in Comcast’s face. Or just threat to cancel or even say “i’ve been tempted to leave because I’ve noticed so much better rates elsewhere”.
Another trick to save money is to bundle your products. if you currently have a home phone service with another company and have Cable TV and Internet with comcast then GET THE THIRD PRODUCT WITH COMCAST! It will be a lot cheaper in the long run when you bundle. Same talking if you have 2 products with someone else then get the THIRD product with them as well, doesn’t have to be with comcast just someone so you can save money!
January 24th, 2009 at 12:57 am
MESSAGE FOR ” T ” - ABOVE POSTER -
GET COMCAST CABLE TV THEN! or HOME PHONE, you would be surprised how useful your home phone will be once you have one and how lower your cell phone bill could be.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:41 am
[...] http://consumerist.com/5147439.....cable-bill http://www.mymoneyblog.com/arc.....cable.html [...]
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
My Comcast bill went to $185/month after the one year trial period. I called Comcast and said that I was going to switch to Dish Network and DSL to save money. I was serious and not just trying to beat them down. They immediately offered to lower my bill for the existing services to $111/month plus tax (about 130 with tax). Dish and DSL would be a little less, but not enough to justify changing.
The catch, its only for six months, after which I have to call again, but hey to save $55/month, I can spend 20 minutes on the phone. And, the Comcast Rep was very personable and was a pleasure to talk to.
July 30th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I’ve been a Comcast customer for about 3 years. I enrolled in the 19.99 per month HSI deal. Each time the promotion ended, I called Comcast and told them that I was unable to afford that rate. They always offered me the 19.99 rate for another 6 months. Until today.
After reading the comments, I noticed two trends: 3 years of service and paying full price for a few months. After each promotion period, I usually paid for the full rate anywhere between 1-3 months then called and was given the 19.99 rate again. Today, however, they would not budge. I threatened to cancel, asked them why they wouldn’t cooperate, and all I got was attitude from the retention rep.
I think if you’re a customer for a long time with a promotion rate, you at least have to pay the full rate for a few months for them to seriously consider giving you the deal. The rep I spoke to said the computer would not give her the option. I’ll call back in a month or two and see if anything has changed.
Also, reps seem to be sympathetic to things like “my hours were cut and I’m having trouble paying the bill.” Today, I just asked for a promotional rate again and they weren’t so friendly.
July 30th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
TylerJ said, “I think if you’re a customer for a long time with a promotion rate, you at least have to pay the full rate for a few months for them to seriously consider giving you the deal.”
I never paid full rate of the combined HSI & digital cable for 5 years. Sometimes it’s the HSI that’s discounted heavily, sometimes it’s the cable package. Combined, they’re both about $100/mo as opposed to the $160+ regular rate.
Just keep calling every 6 months before the promo is over. We haven’t had to use the “satellite switch”-spiel for a while, but it’s there if we need to use it. The reps have been friendly and helpful, and if not, hang up and try again. One rep even said, “you got two young kids, huh? Ok.. let me give you parents some nice bonus channels for the two of you” — and we got free HBO & Showtime for a while.
October 7th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Monologue is exactly right. You DO NOT have to pay full price for a few months before receiving a promotional discount again. Theytell you this over the phone but if you haggle with them, they will give you a deal. It has worked for me every time. If you talk to an agent that doesn’t budge, just call back again. I recommend calling the cancellation line because it’s faster and they are quicker to give you a promo. Also, you don’t have to accept the first thing they tell you because there may be a better deal out there.