New subscription options 2009?

[schampio]

I’ve been pitching to a friend recently about moving off his failing Dtivo to a discounted T-HD with lifetime sub. He ignored me through Christmas when they were running the $299 1st sub special until his HDVR2 croaked for the 4th time recently. Since Sears was out of the $199 T-HD’s he went to Walmart for their $262 with a 3 month return option. I’d pitched that you got 3 months free to make up your mind as they were pushing it heavily the last few months. We went to activate and the 3 months free requires you to go on contract for the year with no returns at the end of the 3 months and no option to upgrade to the Product lifetime which I’d hoped they’d have discounted back to $299 around the July 4th holiday again. At least that’s the understanding of the CSR we got.

So he’s upset and wants to chuck it and I can’t even bring up Tivo desktop or Youtube or Netflix to show him it would be worthwhile (apparently can’t touch any of those until you activate in recent sw levels - seems like a marketing deficiency to me). Any of you out there familiar of promotion codes or discounted product lifetime subs that I can interest him in? I’m failing miserably as a Tivoangelcist these days.

I read elsewhere that you might be able to purchase the yearly sub for $129 and cancel before 30 days for the refund. Then it was suggested you can subsequently activate it before the 90 day Walmart return for lifetime. But I've seen some posts here and there that state you're stuck with whatever subscription model you start with forever even if you 30 day cancel. Anyone know which is true?

[bkdtv]

Activating the "free 90 day trial" commits you to a year (technically, 9 months) of service at $12.99/mo. You can't upgrade to lifetime after the 90 days is up.

On all the standard TiVo plans ($12.99/mo, $129/yr, or $399 lifetime), you can cancel in the first 30 days for a full refund. If he is a friend of yours, you could always activate $299 lifetime using your account, and then move it to his. Anyone with an existing TiVo subscription can activate lifetime for $299; that's how those ebayers are able to sell lifetime subscriptions for $330.

Note the network features like Youtube, etc are not available with the 7-day trial.

[scandia101]

I’d pitched that you got 3 months free to make up your mind as they were pushing it heavily the last few months. We went to activate and the 3 months free requires you to go on contract for the year
Entirely your fault for pitching bad facts.

So he’s upset and wants to chuck it and I can’t even bring up Tivo desktop or Youtube or Netflix to show him it would be worthwhile (apparently can’t touch any of those until you activate in recent sw levels

You don't need a subscription to get the latest software update. It just may takes a few days, but a sub is necessary to use many features.

But I've seen some posts here and there that state you're stuck with whatever subscription model you start with forever even if you 30 day cancel. Anyone know which is true?

I don't know how anyone with an once of common sense would believe that.

I'm sure that's all a misinterpretation of the fact that if you sign up for a 12 month monthly subscription, you are stuck with that decision (after 30 days) until the 12 months are up. You can do what you want inside the 30 day guarantee period, provided that what you purchased wasn't some sort of package deal from Tivo. As far as I can tell your friend is not obligated to sign up for any specific subscription plan because he's not obligated to take advantage of the 3 free months offer.