Sirius Renewal Deals

[Fastronaut]

I had XM radio in another car and quickly learned not to use my credit card because they billed automatically at the prevailing rate for renewals. OK, not a problem now. Wondering if there are any renewal deals for Sirius like those for XM in the past. There used to be deal codes you could use for 1/2 price renewals, etc.. Is there anything like that for Sirius Fusion owners after the 6 month trial period?

[jeff_h]

I made a post in another thread here somewhere that 3 days after my 6-month trial expiration (even though I had just renewed) I got a yellow envelope with a "please come back" type offer, was something like 'pay for 6 more months, get a free year' or some type of decent deal which one could probably continue to renew under if they didn't mind outages for a few days... following the logic that if they sent you a "please come back" after the trial then they would very likely do the same for expiration of a paid subscription, right?

[murphy]

I have an XM radio that hasn't has a subscription since 2009. Every couple of months I get an email offering to renew it for 6 months for $25.

[SteveB_TX]

When I called to activate my 6 month trial, they offered to extend my subscription for 12 months at 50% off the Mostly Music Package (which is the one I had on XM). I like those kinds of deals. :)

[Fastronaut]

I have an XM radio that hasn't has a subscription since 2009. Every couple of months I get an email offering to renew it for 6 months for $25.

Evidently, they have long memories ;)

[hybridbear]

The longer you're expired the better the offers get. The most recent mailing was $20 for 5 months. We're going to reactivate the Sirius in the Prius that just expired from the free trial. The $20 for 5 months offer came for the black FFH. The letter says that the offer is good for any expired radio on your account though...the best Prius offer we've received so far is $159.39 for 1 year (1 month free). I don't want them to delete the black FFH from our account because I want to keep receiving the good renewal offers from it that we can use for the other car!

[acdii]

Isnt the Pr XM? My Camry was XM and I couldnt merge the Sirius and XM accounts. I still get a ton of letters and offers from them and they wont stop calling me. What part of 3 times said, NOT INTERESTED do they not get?

[murphy]

acdii

 

XM and Sirius accounts can now be merged but you have to call on the phone to have it done.

 

 

hybridbear

 

I'm surprised your old car is still in your account. When I traded in my 2010 Fusion Hybrid it was gone from my account by the time I got home with the new car.

[hybridbear]

Isnt the Pr XM? My Camry was XM and I couldnt merge the Sirius and XM accounts. I still get a ton of letters and offers from them and they wont stop calling me. What part of 3 times said, NOT INTERESTED do they not get?

The Prius letter refers to the company as "SiriusXM". The FFH letter refers to the company as "SiriusXM". I just called and reactivated the Prius radio. I used the FFH offer and asked them to merge both cars under one account. I gave them the Radio ID (ESN) from the black FFH and he linked it and the Prius on the same account. I don't know the ESN for the white FFH yet, but once it expires and we get a letter from Sirius with it I'll call to make sure it's on the same account too. I know I can look it up in the car, but I don't have a reason to call SiriusXM again until it expires so I'll wait till then to figure out its ESN.

 

acdii

 

XM and Sirius accounts can now be merged but you have to call on the phone to have it done.

 

 

hybridbear

 

I'm surprised your old car is still in your account. When I traded in my 2010 Fusion Hybrid it was gone from my account by the time I got home with the new car.

Apparently not. The Sirius rep kept trying to sell me on reactivating the radio in the black FFH for the same $19.99 for 5 months. I politely declined but didn't tell him that we no longer have the black FFH since I want to see if the offers get even better in the future.

 

It also sounds like they don't link offers to your account. He asked me what promotional offer I wanted. I said $19.99 for 5 months and he said "ok, that promotion is still active." It sounds like anyone with an expired radio could call and ask for the $19.99 for 5 months offer even if you didn't get a letter advertising that. If anyone sees a better offer than that it would be nice if they would post it here so that others could benefit from it too.

Edited December 17, 2013 by hybridbear

[acdii]

Must have been very recently that they did this since I tried to tie in an XM portable to my Sirius account and they were unable to. I promptly canceled the XM radio since it never got used. It was tied into my other XM account that I had to the Camry and cost $9 a month. Then Sirius screwed around with billing and got them all messed up, so canceled all radios for a year. When I renewed my 2010 so I could get the weather and fuel prices I asked if my XM radio could be put on the same account and was told no. I have no idea where I put that darn thing now.

[hybridbear]

Must have been very recently that they did this since I tried to tie in an XM portable to my Sirius account and they were unable to. I promptly canceled the XM radio since it never got used. It was tied into my other XM account that I had to the Camry and cost $9 a month. Then Sirius screwed around with billing and got them all messed up, so canceled all radios for a year. When I renewed my 2010 so I could get the weather and fuel prices I asked if my XM radio could be put on the same account and was told no. I have no idea where I put that darn thing now.

It's likely that old radios can't be combined with new radios, but all new cars should come with a SiriusXM radio since they're now one company. The ESN in the Toyota is a combination of letters & numbers while the ESN for the Ford is all numbers. I don't know if that means anything or not, but it's just something I noticed.

[murphy]

XM radios have letters in the serial numbers.

It's one company but it is still two separate satellite systems.

On my normal route XM outperforms Sirius by a wide margin.

Lots of dropouts on Sirius but no dropouts on XM.

[Fastronaut]

My subscription runs out in a week or so. The offer I got was for 2 months free service with renewal.

[hybridbear]

XM radios have letters in the serial numbers.

It's one company but it is still two separate satellite systems.

On my normal route XM outperforms Sirius by a wide margin.

Lots of dropouts on Sirius but no dropouts on XM.

So this means the Prius runs on XM satellites but the FFH on Sirius satellites? We have never had reception issues with either car under than when inside a building (parking ramp, garage, etc). Thick tree cover has never caused a loss of reception for us. What differences do you notice?

 

You, waldo & lolder are a huge asset to this forum with the technical knowledge you share and the interesting things about which you are informed such as Sirius vs XM. Thank you! :worship:

 

My subscription runs out in a week or so. The offer I got was for 2 months free service with renewal.

That doesn't sound very good...our deal mentioned above is quoted as a "72% savings" in their letter. Since we got 5 months for $19.99 and the "normal" price is $14.xx per month they can thus call it a 72% savings. This is the best deal we've seen so far. I called 1 day after the Prius expired and renewed at that "72% savings" price. I imagine you could do the same soon.

[murphy]

So this means the Prius runs on XM satellites but the FFH on Sirius satellites? We have never had reception issues with either car under than when inside a building (parking ramp, garage, etc). Thick tree cover has never caused a loss of reception for us. What differences do you notice?

 

I have three XM radios, two with lifetime subscriptions and one with no subscription. I had one of the lifetime radios in my 2002 Crown Vic. It worked fine. In 2009 I bought a 2010 Fusion Hybrid. I immediately noticed the Sirius radio cutting out for several seconds at a time when driving under trees that overhang the road about 60 feet above the road. I lived with it for 4 years. Then I got the Energi and noticed the same problem. When the Sirius subscription expired I put one of the XM radios in the Energi. It's in the storage console connected to the power port and the red/white jacks. The antenna is on the roof immediately behind the shark fin. The audio cutout problem is gone. The only thing I lose is the song titles on the MFT screen. I've been getting emails about every three months for years offering 6 months for $25 on my unsubscribed XM radio. It says the offer is good on any unsubscribed radio on my account so I assume it would work on the Sirrius in the car. I'll probably keep ignoring the emails since I solved the problem at no additional cost.

[Fastronaut]

I got another offer yesterday. First 12 months for $95.

[hybridbear]

I got another offer yesterday. First 12 months for $95.

Still not as good as the 5 months for $19.99...

[Fastronaut]

Talk to me in month 6 ;)

[hybridbear]

Talk to me in month 6 ;)

You can just call the day after expiration to renew again.

[jeff_h]

Talk to me in month 6 ;)

 

It doesn't really pay to renew early... the 6 months on our Energi was up in October, and during the trial period I never got any 'welcome to Sirius' and 'your trial will be ending' letters, which was strange. So we figured maybe someone forgot about us, and it appears they did for a couple weeks (thought it would be cut off but it was not), got letter saying that due to error in the registration and activation procedures (translation = maybe they did lose us temporarily) they were setting our trial period to run until March 2014... so it is turning out to be five more months of trial period than I expected.

[Fastronaut]

 

It doesn't really pay to renew early... the 6 months on our Energi was up in October, and during the trial period I never got any 'welcome to Sirius' and 'your trial will be ending' letters, which was strange. So we figured maybe someone forgot about us, and it appears they did for a couple weeks (thought it would be cut off but it was not), got letter saying that due to error in the registration and activation procedures (translation = maybe they did lose us temporarily) they were setting our trial period to run until March 2014... so it is turning out to be five more months of trial period than I expected.

Let no good deed go unpunished.

[acdii]

Either Sirius ran out of phone numbers they can call from, or they finally got the message to leave me alone! LOL

[hybridbear]

XM radios have letters in the serial numbers.

It's one company but it is still two separate satellite systems.

On my normal route XM outperforms Sirius by a wide margin.

Lots of dropouts on Sirius but no dropouts on XM.

Since your comments I began to notice differences...The Prius XM radio doesn't lose signal in tunnels, parking ramps or our underground garage at our apartment. The Sirius radio in the FFH loses signal the instant we go underground into the garage at home or the instant we enter a covered parking ramp. The Prius XM radio is much slower to connect when scrolling through stations, but the signal quality is better.

 

As far as FM radio, the FFH has a much better antenna. There is one Spanish language station that is has a weak signal in the city as they're based in Southern MN. The FFH has minimal issues picking up this station. The Prius almost never can pick it up and when it does pick it up the sound is very quiet so you have to crank the volume to hear it. The same is true of a radio station based out of St Cloud (90 miles NW of Minneapolis) that we like. The FFH picks it up fairly well, the Prius won't hardly at all.

[neod192]

The best offer to come back to Sirius was $25 for 6 months. That's only $1 more than hybridbear's $19.99 for 5 months offer (if it was 6 mo @ the same monthly rate).

[neod192]

The best offer to come back to Sirius was $25 for 6 months. That's only $1 more than hybridbear's $19.99 for 5 months offer (if it was 6 mo @ the same monthly rate).

Got the mail today and guess what was in there! $20 for 5 months of service :) I guess this is as good as it's going to get, eh?