Saving on Internet Access, Negotiate with Your Provider

One item that is on my calendar is a yearly reminder to re-negotiate with my internet provider, Xfinity in this case, when my yearly contract* expires. Setting a calendar reminder is a great method to check in on ones existing internet provider and re-negotiate.

Xfinity is know for offering some good deals for new signups, but not so much for existing customers.

1. Step 1 for re-negotiate is check to see what ones new rate would be after the promotional contract* rate end.
2. Check what deals are available for new signups
3. Contact the internet provider to negotiate

In Xfinity’s case you can re-negotiate via chat or phone, neither one seemed better and I have had mixed results with using either of these methods based on the person I converse with. If the person on the other end is not interested in talking about your existing needs, I find it best to end the conversation or chat and try talking to another person.

Real World Example

My 1 year contact had ended and the pricing of $75 a month was going to increase to $130 a month (both prices are with taxes and fees) a difference of $55 more a month. To make matters worse I was on an older speed plan of 100MB, and a slow 10mb upload speed, as the boosted speed plan had expired which greatly increased my speed beyond the listed amounts.

I used chat and after talking to the sales person, it appeared that there was not many options but it was due to the sales person thinking I wanted the broadcast TV part of the bundle. I then explained I had never used the broadcast TV and only had it due to the bundle was cheaper then only internet. Once it was clear that I only wanted internet the sales persona offered me several options. The tip here is make sure the person you are conversing with knows exactly what you want and don’t want.

After further chatting the sales person offered me a 2 year internet only contract at higher speed tiers for $70 a month with taxes, with a lock in period of 1 year. I could change plans after 1 year but the pricing was good for 2 years. This new price was similar in pricing to new customer pricing and would save me $60 a month off. In all I spent about 45 minutes to save $60 a month for the next two years, saving ~$1400, without having to go through the hassle of changing internet providers.

New Customer Offer Example

*Many internet providers who state they don’t have contracts, do in fact offer contracts for many deals where one can lock in low prices for a year or two.