Tivo offering $99 lifetime upgrades to some users

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I'm sorry, but what's controversial about that? Are you saying that they gave you the $99 deal? If so, I think that at least one other person in this thread who had that 3 year month-to-month contract has said that they got the deal as well. Many others have reported trying to talk them into it and failing.

There's been a certain amount of inconsistency in how the deal's been applied.

 

okay, I didn't read the whole thread, people kept saying that you had to be on the 3-year prepay to get the $99 and not the 3-year month to month, that's why I thought I had no chance.

But when tried my luck, I got the $99 on it, I still had 5 months or so to go on the 3 year at $6.95, so it save a couple of extra bucks too.

 

Or perhaps a certain amount of consistency that we, from the outside, cannot discern the parameters of...

 

Yeah, I think that you were lucky. I believe that only one other person has reported success with getting the deal for a 3-year month-to-month, and more than one person has reported failure with that.

You saved more than a few bucks--you paid about $85 less for your PLS than those of us who bought prepaid plans and took the deal, without having to help TiVo out by giving them a big chunk of cash up front .

Yes. Perhaps not only the plan and activation date are involved, but the precise time of day, day of the week and phase of the moon .

 

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Hehe... I was referring more to demographic indicators: Zip code, perhaps socio-economic connections, similar to that which cold-caller use to solicit to consumers, etc.

 

My intention was to make an observation not a complaint though I guess it could be read that way. Tivo should have offered some kind of deal to everyone who purchased their unit back when PLS was not available.

As it stands now, they have a significant number of folks like myself feeling that they may have been burned even though we know that's not neccessarily accurrate.

Because of this and that disaster called "Premiere" I am definitelty looking to sunset my THD sooner than later.

 

OK, on my 5th attempt TiVo finally offered me the lifetime upgrade for $99. Done.

Now, the next step. I plan to buy a TiVo Premiere XL, along with lifetime service. If I buy on TiVo.com I can get lifetime for $300 if I pay full-price for the Premiere. Otherwise I can get $100 off the price of the Premiere, and it uses the remainder of my 3-year dealio (which ends in a month)... at which point I'd pay $400 for lifetime, so that seems like a push. If I buy via Amazon or BestBuy, can I still buy lifetime service for $300 using MSD? Sorry if this has been answered already, I've lost track of the thread.

Thanks.

 

I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that when you converted to PLS, anything left of your 3-year prepaid plan went up in smoke.

My understanding of the Premiere upgrade deal is that you can get %20 off the price if your unit doesn't have PLS ($60 off the Premiere, $100 off the XL) OR PLS for half price if your current unit has PLS. You only get one of these--I'm not sure, but it doesn't seem possible for PLS folks to get the %20 off deal, just half price PLS on the new unit (if I go to their Premiere Upgrade page and click the "See my options" link half-priced PLS is all that it offers me).

 

I bought two Premieres from Bestbuy on their 0% store card; I thought I had shot myself in the foot trying to get the 299.99$ PLS. I just activated two of them for 299.99$ each by logging into my tivo.com account and selecting "activate a new tivo".

So in short: yes I was able to.

 

$300 PLS is the normal MSD rate. What you miss out on by not buying from tivo.com is $200 PLS.

There should be no situation in which someone who already has a TiVo with PLS (even $100 PLS) would pay $400 for PLS on a new Premiere.

 

So the $200 on PLS, does that move the PLS from the S3 to the Premiere or is it in addition?

FYI, I hadn't seen any discounts on Premiere until this evening, when Amazon shaved $20 off the standard Premiere and Electronics Expo offered the XL for $420. Also gets a free Wireless-N adapter through Amazon, which I don't need. Would much prefer the keyboard remote or just a straight discount.

 

In addition -- you get to keep the PLS on the S3, while adding it to the Premiere for $199.

 

I think that there's no situation in which someone who's a current TiVo subscriber should pay more than $300 for PLS on a new unit, whether any of their other units have PLS or not.

 

May I ask what you did in order to get them to finally comply?

 

It didn't take me five tries, but only three.

Each time, I asked more nicely than the previous time.

 

I'm going to try tonight with my Series 3. If I don't get it, I will cancel my TiVo service for now (me 3-year month to month commitment ends June 14th). I can get everything I need online, though not in HD, but if they won't give me $99 LT anyway I might as well stop service until the fall (since there's nothing I can't watch live until then anyway, and I will probably by a Premiere with LT later this summer or fall).

 

My 3 year service plan on my Series 3 was ending effective 6/12/10. I had been holding off agreeing to a new plan because I did not know if I wanted 1 year, lifetime or whatever. My waiting appears to have paid off! Last night I got the $99 lifetime service upgrade email for my series 3. Called today and now I am set.

Makes me wonder if this would have been offered if I would have agreed to a 1 year extension a month ago... sometimes it pays to procrastinate!

 

That's very interesting. Did your e-mail offer mention an expiration date? Mine said 30 April.

They may have officially revived and extended this program, which would be cool (for everyone except keenanSR, who no doubt will remain SOL ).

 

Well, I know I was supposed to get that plan, but I short-circuited that process by sending the email ahead of time. I know I was supposed to get it because I called TiVo's regular telephone support and they said that yes, if I was patient, I'd get it.

My 3 year prepaid ends this month, and my tivo.com account shows the future plan is $99 lifetime.

Now if only TiVo would make a new box that has all the nice stuff of my Series 3.

 

The expire date on my offer was 7/20/10