"Just ask" indeed!
Armed with the simple "how to" on MyMoneyBlog, inspired by several past posts (specifically at BudgetingBabe and StopBuyingCrap), and today's carnival post about using competitive offers as leverage LaLa took the plunge (the account is in her name) and called our Cable service to ask for a reduced charge.
We currently have a bundled cable, phone and internet service and the base price is $97/month. We pay about $37 in add-on services like caller id and renting the cable box and modem (which totally cheeses me but I digress). With taxes and fees, our bill has been about $146/month total. We switched to this bundle so we only pay for what we actually use and it is cheaper than what we had been paying (a different "bundle" chosen by them)
The plan was to ask for the current promotional rate of $60/month for 6 months...hoping to save a total of $222. The retention CSR was not authorized to give us that deal...so we were given $20 off for twelve months for a total of $240 less. Slightly more in all, but spread out over the next year.
$240 for 45 minutes of sitting on the phone. woohoo.
As far as television is concerned, I am happy with the basic, so-bare-bones-you-have-to-ask-for-it cable TV in my area. It's about a fourth of the cost of regular cable, and gets all the channels I "need." If only these bundling schemes offered more savings than they do ...
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