Check Your FiOS Contract For Bonus Rewards

fios-bonus

As the story goes, I renewed Verizon FiOS services in August after several years of stellar performance (at two addresses) and in light of the potential disruption an Xfinity install might bring along with Comcast’s ongoing HBO GO Roku blockade. After Tech of the Hub received a pretty fantabulous FiOS renewal offer that effectively comps two years of premium channels, including HBO and Showtime, I popped into my account to see if renewing our two-year contract just 4 months in might yield similar goodness. And, indeed, I had the option to re-up my exact same bundle… for even less money. At only $75/mo for 50/50Mbps Internet, plus a healthy selection of cable television content and the all locals (without an aerial antenna), it’s extremely hard to consider cutting the cord.

18 thoughts on “Check Your FiOS Contract For Bonus Rewards”

  1. A few notes…

    For a $5 price increase, I could have also added back in ESPN, E, and Travel channel by moving from HD Select to HD Preferred… but giving up BBC America would ultimately cost me even more in Amazon Instant purchases.

    The CableCARD rental adds $5/mo, plus another few bucks in taxes and fees.

    I’m taking a look at the new FiOS Gateway:
    https://twitter.com/davezatz/status/539917365358514177

  2. “I’m taking a look at the new FiOS Gateway”

    Y’know, for the price of that, you could buy a real router and a MoCA bridge…

  3. Meanwhile, we are about to cut FiOS cable. They’ve gone from $35 a month to $98 for no change in service. It’s an easy decision to cut the cord – they’re just not competitive in the least.

  4. Rich, Varun,

    If you check in your account to change or renew your bundle, you tick ‘new 2 year agreement’ or similar, start selecting things, and then it should indicate you have special offers available – clicking that link shows you some of them and/or adding the package to the cart and going to check out will have you select which. As my request is in process, I can’t get back in to take screenshots.

    Chucky,

    Probably not both, but this exercise does have me thinking similar…

  5. I’ve already got a pretty good price as I’m at $120 a month for phone, 25/25 internet and the Ultimate package which gives me pretty much every channel.

    They want $40 a month to upgrade to 50/50 and $20 a month to go to 75/75 (yes I realize that makes no sense). I originally had 50/50 and was paying $125 for one year and $130 for the second. But when the 25/25 option became available I was able to downgrade and get the $120 a month price. Needless to say I’m not upgrading from 25/25.

  6. For a 2-year agreement, I can get a $5 discount! Or I could cancel TV and get upwards of a $100 discount. Hmm, decisions, decisions. *rolls eyes*

  7. Varun, is it just TV you have with Verizon? Or Internet too?

    Daniel, yeah I saw similar voodoo economics when clicking on the different boxes (plus varying perks) when pricing things out.

  8. As always, with FIOS, you have a competitive MSO in your area. If you’re willing to spend a couple of hours, with your time paid at a higher rate than a white-shoe lawyer, find an new service offer from the competitive MSO, call up Verizon, tell them you’re planning to switch, get transferred to the Don’t-Let-Fibre-Go-Dark! department, give them the details the other MSO is offering, and you’ll get an amazing deal.

    It’s more than worth the hassle every two years…

  9. 75/75 and the Extreme Tier with HBO – the only tier that has both BBC and NBC Sports, alas. No telephone. Some calling suggests that we can get a $20/month discount for doing a two year contract, so we’d basically be down to $150/month from $170. If I’m willing to give up F1, then it’s another $30 saved; if I give up BBC, then it’s $20 saved. To add insult to injury, there’s programming costs stuck under the “fees” section – a regional sports fee for instance, which is a cost of programming if I’ve ever heard of one. I tweeted this out a few days ago https://twitter.com/vnangia/status/540606749292888064 to illustrate the kind of BS FiOS pulls.

    And despite what Chucky says, no, it’s not a competitive market. Cox offers us almost exactly the same set of channels give or take a half-dozen, and exactly the same rates as FiOS (down to the same price for the premiums). The only difference is that Cox uses SDV, so you can enjoy HD television looking like early 90s GIFs and no knowledge of or support for CableCards so, uh, good luck. (And one of the only reasons they do have Cable Cards now is because I filed a complaint with the FCC complaining that they were in violation of the August 2011 rules.) So yeah, the choice is between the incompetent or the unethical.

  10. Yeah, the big cost savings came to me by dropping sports… and save me even more since I’m no longer buying Luther, Orphan Black, Sherlock from Amazon. The ESPN v BBCA is a weird programming decision by Verizon. Chucky’s point is you can often work a better deal by going thru the retention department. But I don’t usually have the strength to work as hard as Chucky does. I’ll take my $5 discount and like it.

  11. “And despite what Chucky says, no, it’s not a competitive market. Cox offers us almost exactly the same set of channels give or take a half-dozen, and exactly the same rates as FiOS (down to the same price for the premiums).”

    I’m not suggesting switching. I’m suggesting threatening to switch, in order to get Verizon to give you an offer well below the rack rate.

    And if you call Cox, and tell them you’re a FIOS subscriber who’s about to sign a two year contract, they’ll highly likely transfer to you to their ‘special department’ and offer something well under their rack rate, which is the offer you then take to Verizon’s ‘special department’.

    Yeah, it’s all a bit of hassle. But you only need to do it once every two (or three) years, and like I say, your time gets paid at a higher rate than that of a white-shoe lawyer…

  12. I re-upped my FiOS contract on Friday.

    My current contract was expiring in January so I’ve been checking out the renewal specials every few weeks for a while.

    I didn’t expect to be able to come close to the previous deal (double play with Ultimate HD and 75/75 internet for $95 base fee), but I actually came out way ahead for our usage.

    The renewal “offer” was to keep the existing features for a $45/month increase ($139.99)… but after clicking around in the “build your own bundle” interface, I got to Preferred HD and 75/75 internet for a 2 year contract/3 year price guarantee and the Fully Loaded Entertainment Pack free for the first two years. Total base fee $99.99

    With our viewing habits, we are not giving up any channels that we regularly watch AND we are getting all of the premium channels that we hadn’t been willing to pay extra for.

    Can’t beat that with a stick, in my book.

    I know for many people the price of FiOS has been escalating, but by the end of this 3 year price guarantee, I’ll have gone five years with only a total of < 10% price increase and will have had significantly more services (extra premium channels and increased internet speeds) than when I signed the original contract in January 2013.

  13. Pretty funny story with FIOS and me.

    I lusted after FIOS for nearly a decade, stuck in Time-warner hell. Eventually I ended up paying $120/month for 50/5 and TV. Dropped TV and got that down to $70. Not so bad. Then, they upgraded me to 100/5 for no additional cost. Pretty fast downloads, crap upload. Then, just recently in October, they upgraded me again at no additional cost– to 300/20. This is fast as _hell_.

    And then I moved 2 weeks ago to a building with FIOS. And I check out Verizon’s site, and the best they can do is 75/75 for $10 more than I’m paying Time-Warner. 150/150 is $130!

    So I can finally get FIOS, and I don’t even want it. They can’t compete with Time-Warner Cable. Never saw that one coming!

  14. I just dread the day they all hit us with caps or tiers… I feel like it’s coming. And 4k streaming video could accelerate things. Be careful what you wish for!

  15. The bright side is I’m one of vanishingly few Americans with an actual choice in my ISP. I can pit TWC and verizon against each other. FIOS is _why_ TWC offers such great speeds, of course.

  16. I am still loving my FiOS price mistake. Two years ago they had an option to subscribe to double play with ultimate and 75/35,at the time, for $80. Those discounts expire next month though. It looks I jump to $129 until March then at which point I need to decide what to do.

  17. I wish I had been offered this since I renewed back in June. I’m paying half price to add HBO and Starz to teh Ultimate HD tier. It would have been nice to be offered this deal to save that $16 extra.

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