Annual Sirius XM Dance

[ATX78701]

I left the XM Sirius dance floor in spring of this year. Tired of the dance and not in the car that much anymore w*rking from home. With the phone and all of the music CDs I’ve loaded into the radio memory, I have plenty of options.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

Because of this thread, I researched Sirius costs. Years ago, we had Sirius on a new car for some trial period and the service was good. Dumped it when the trial period was up.

Their website is full of FREE or heavily discounted trial period costs. I did an online chat with some Sirius person to get the real undiscounted, full prices. Including royalty fees and taxes, you are looking at $28 per month per car. I understand you can fight them once a year or once every six months but I don't like that game.

So, for 3 cars the full price is roughly $84 per month.

I have Plex on my home NAS with the app on my cell phone, a paid Pandora subscription, unlimited data on my phone and a flash drive with hundreds of songs for when I am out of cell phone range. Seems like this is a small fraction of the Sirius cost.

No thanks, Sirius. Maybe if I enjoyed the "I'm going to cancel game" and I spent way more time in the car.

 

[Sittinginthesun]

My wife laughs at me on the phone with Sirius every 6 months. Best way to the lowest rate is to tell the first CSR I am calling to cancel due to cost. They put me through to retention department and I reject their first two offers. Eventually we get to the rate I will accept which is about $25 for 6 months. Rinse and repeat with 2 cars every 6 months.

 

[braumeister]

Every now and then, someone falls through the cracks. I've done the cancel/renew dance with them in the past, but their subscriber database system isn't perfect.

When I got my last new car it came (naturally) with a complimentary Sirius/XM subscription. My understanding was that it was supposed to be for either 3 or 6 months, never knew which. However, the salesman who handed over the keys never mentioned it, and I never received anything from Sirius.

I'm still enjoying the full subscription now, 20 months later. Still haven't heard from them, and I don't plan to contact anyone to ask about it.

 

[Car-Guy]

So I just renewed the XM service on one of my cars... I had a small credit so after the dance is was only $15 more for 6 months... Ok, so they sent me a bill (since I refuse to give them my credit card #). Then this Sunday they sent me an email reminding me that my bill is due. Then I got the bill in the mail on Monday. So I bought a money order while still at the Post Office and dropped the payment in the mail. Then last night (Thursday) I got a phone call telling me they still haven't received payment. I told them I just got the %$8#&^ bill in the mail on Monday and paid it immediately. I'm sure the mail is slow with all the holidays but give me a break and get off my back. I told them one more email or phone call and I'm cancelling. I may cancel anyway.

 

[JP.mpls]

My friend has a lifetime account. He claims it isn't offered anymore, and he got it for $300 when they first started to offer this service.

My new car doesn't have a CD player, but it has the Android Auto application. I use Google Maps for navigating in the car, and it interrupts the music. I don't like that.

I have my CD collection burned and saved on my laptop. I have all of those songs saved onto a USB memory stick, and it plays flawlessly in the car. It it awesome.

That being said, Sirius XM radio just offered me 3 months free, and I took it.

JP

 

[grasshopper]

Our new ride with Android Auto no more stepping on my toes.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

Has anything changed in the last year?

Bought a car and am enjoying my free 90 day trial. Sirius works well with my car stereo. Much good content. Streaming outside of car works. Streaming includes podcasts and a bunch of other goodies - I have yet to explore most of these features.

2 negatives: 1) Having to call and do the dance every 3 to 6 to 12 months. 2) Without a dance, the monthly cost is $16.99 plus fees and taxes for Select. Or $21.99 plus fees and taxes per month for All Access. Not worth it for the little driving I do.

I do have an unlimited cell phone plan so I can stream Plex, Pandora, etc. And I have a flash drive with tons of the bad music that I love.

Again, is the annual dance still the same?

 

[G8tr]

Just renewed my XM for a full year at $5 a month, plus received a free echo dot

 

[Jerry1]

Just renewed my XM for a full year at $5 a month, plus received a free echo dot

I didn’t get the dot, but I signed up for a year for $60. I’ll keep signing up if I can get it for that. I like it, but I’m not spending more than $5. With that and the $10 I pay for Amazon music. That’s about the same as a CD per month. That’s about all I want to spend on music. Especially since I do pretty well with Pandora for free.

 

[jazz4cash]

Man, I am getting screwed big time. I'm paying $26/mo and my renewal is due soon. I hardly do any driving anymore but I justify it since it is accessible on my phone and laptop. I don't plan to go without XM but I might drop it for a few months until they offer me a better price.

 

[Aerides]

Again, is the annual dance still the same?

I did the dance recently and it was much quicker. Far less sales pitch. Now, I'm very to the point. I basically said I want $5 a month including the app for 1 year or cancel me now (because if I cancel, that's what the email will offer that they will send in 3 days).

Was over and done with in a few minutes.

Man, I am getting screwed big time. I'm paying $26/mo and my renewal is due soon. I hardly do any driving anymore but I justify it since it is accessible on my phone and laptop. I don't plan to go without XM but I might drop it for a few months until they offer me a better price.

Call them today. You can get your existing plan adjusted. They won't offer you anything good until you cancel otherwise. And you have to call to cancel so you have nothing to lose.

 

[ivinsfan]

Man, I am getting screwed big time. I'm paying $26/mo and my renewal is due soon. I hardly do any driving anymore but I justify it since it is accessible on my phone and laptop. I don't plan to go without XM but I might drop it for a few months until they offer me a better price.

They love you! But this is what people pay if they don't stay on top of things. Generally speaking I hate companies that charge good customers more because they are good customers. Unfortunately that is getting much more common.

 

[statsman]

Man, I am getting screwed big time. I'm paying $26/mo and my renewal is due soon. I hardly do any driving anymore but I justify it since it is accessible on my phone and laptop. I don't plan to go without XM but I might drop it for a few months until they offer me a better price.

We dropped XM back in the Summer of 2019 when they wouldn't offer much in the way of a discount. Within a couple of weeks of cancelling, our XM account showed we had a $60/yr promo, which we opted for. Although the Royalty fees, which seem to be rising yearly, are now a bit over 21% of the base cost.

When I went to cancel again last summer, mainly because we were driving even less than usual due to COVID-19 regulations shutting down most businesses and entertainment, their phone automated system actually offered up a renewal at the $60/yr cost. We opted for that, knowing I would be doing some driving for groceries and household goods (and little did I know, several trips for medical services). Didn't have to talk to a sales rep at all.

What I don't know is if they'll do this again come this Summer. We still have some shutdowns/restrictions due to COVID-19, and a lot of people are still working from home.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Man, I am getting screwed big time. I'm paying $26/mo and my renewal is due soon. I hardly do any driving anymore but I justify it since it is accessible on my phone and laptop. I don't plan to go without XM but I might drop it for a few months until they offer me a better price.

You won't have to. As a matter of fact, you could call today to cancel you plan and they will fix you up w/ a new rate. There really isn't a contract per se, and there isn't technically a "renewal" (they will just increase the price to market rate after whatever promo you signed up for expires). They have always made it easy to get a lower rate.

 

[zinger1457]

I just did the 1 year for $60 with a free Echo dot, was surprised they included Howard Stern with this offer, the discounts I've been offered in the past were just for the music channels.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Isn't the $5 per month more like $15, once taxes and fees are added in?

I canceled mine this spring since I'm not driving 1/10th as much as I did in the "before times." Boy, that took some doing to get them to finally cancel! At one point the [-]liar[/-] customer service rep even told me the $5 was all-in; I knew better. He also told me it was canceled when the follow-up email said it was only suspended with an automatic re-activation after X number of months. They convinced me never to do business with them again.

 

[statsman]

Isn't the $5 per month more like $15, once taxes and fees are added in?

For us in Texas, which also adds sales tax, it comes out to about $6.50/mo total cost for a base contract of $5/mo.

The Royalty Fees last summer were a touch over 21%. So, $5/mo would have a ~$1.05/mo Royalty Fee.

 

[Aerides]

Isn't the $5 per month more like $15, once taxes and fees are added in?

With taxes and royalties, mine is $84.86 for 12 months. I use the app far more than my in-car radio.

 

[Dtail]

With taxes and royalties, mine is $84.86 for 12 months. I use the app far more than my in-car radio.

Yep, mine is 83 and change for the year.
One can always negotiate for this rate every single year.

 

[statsman]

With taxes and royalties, mine is $84.86 for 12 months.

Yep, mine is 83 and change for the year.

If those amounts are for a $5/mo contact, I wonder why so high. The Royalty Fee is 21.4%, and sales tax can't be 14-16%.

 

[Aerides]

If those amounts are for a $5/mo contact, I wonder why so high. The Royalty Fee is 21.4%, and sales tax can't be 14-16%.

$60
+ Royalty 12.84 (21.4%)
+ Tax 10.02 <-- that is higher than my normal sales tax, which would be $5.09, but I perhaps there are some state taxes wrapped in there special like hotels do?

 

[CoolRich59]

We have a friend who claims he was able to get them to give him a $5 a month rate (single vehicle) FOR LIFE so he doesn't have to go through this yearly exercise. Rick wasn't able to secure that for me, but I'm gathering ammo so I can try again next year. Anyone tried this? It's kind of entertaining talking to them, but that's 30 minutes of my life I won't get back. But hey, I'm retired - what else do I have to do?

I haven't finished reading the thread, but will be very interested if anyone else got this deal.

I used to have the $5/mo rate. I didn't listen very often, but was willing to pay $5/mo just to have satellite radio for a change of pace. However, Sirius would only agree to a 5 month term and so I was doing the dance at least twice a year and it got really old.

The last time I called to cancel, I said I would only renew if they agreed to extend my term for a year. To my surprise, they said no and processed the cancellation.

 

[G8tr]

I haven't finished reading the thread, but will be very interested if anyone else got this deal.

I used to have the $5/mo rate. I didn't listen very often, but was willing to pay $5/mo just to have satellite radio for a change of pace. However, Sirius would only agree to a 5 month term and so I was doing the dance at least twice a year and it got really old.

The last time I called to cancel, I said I would only renew if they agreed to extend my term for a year. To my surprise, they said no and processed the cancellation.

The main reason Sirius XM has been offering sweet deals these days is because most users of the service have it in their cars. With Covid, almost no one is driving a regular commute, so folks didn't renew their subscriptions. I used to do the every 5-6 month dance, and it got very old. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a choice, since terrestrial radio sucks and I needed channels for everyone to listen.

I thought seriously about buying Pandora or Spotify and streaming from my phone. However, I would have needed an unlimited data plan, in turm doubling my cell phone bill. No bueno.

 

[CoolRich59]

I thought seriously about buying Pandora or Spotify and streaming from my phone. However, I would have needed an unlimited data plan, in turm doubling my cell phone bill. No bueno.

I have Spotify Premium. If you have enough space on your phone, download some/all of your Spotify playlists to your phone. I do this and it does not use data.