# Premiere Lifetime for $99



## dhoward

When I bought my Premiere Tivo allowed me to pay $99 to convert my HD to lifetime. Has anyone had this offer to a Premiere if they purchase a Roamio? Probably wishful thinking but it would be enough for me to make the purchase.


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## NotNowChief

I have a Premiere Elite that meets its' one year commitment tomorrow 9/19......and I'm holding out on ordering a Roamio to add to my collection for 2 reasons - 1) I'm waiting for any kind of promotion to score some kind of a discount on something to do with a PLS on either a new Roamio or an existing Premiere, and 2) TiVo is not getting a PENNY out of me until the Roamio is 100% (read: out of home streaming actually works & NOT "coming soon" and Android and/or Browser support). 

Probably wishful thinking, but we shall see as the holidays roll around, since today is only 97 shopping days until Christmas.......


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## JasonD

No but they upgraded my Premiere to lifetime for $200, I'm happy.


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## dhoward

JasonD said:


> No but they upgraded my Premiere to lifetime for $200, I'm happy.


Did you have to buy a Roamio for that?


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## TxDan

I bought a Premiere XL from a girl on Craigslist in July. She was going to Uverse so Tivo offered the $200 lifetime to her to get her to stay. Tivo let me have the $200 deal.


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## JasonD

dhoward said:


> Did you have to buy a Roamio for that?


No I had already purchased a Roamio from an online vendor, didn't seem to matter to them.


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## mrizzo80

I recently bought a Roamio and a few weeks later called up to cancel my 2 tuner Premiere that I've had for over 3 years. As I was dialing I thought there was an outside chance they would offer me a heavily discounted Lifetime package to stay, but I didn't really care either way.

When I told him I wanted to cancel, he asked me "what are you going to do with the box?" I said something like "I don't know...maybe sell it, maybe put it in the closet." He then encouraged me to sell it due to the high resale value (yeah right!). Anyway...point being, if you call TiVo to cancel service I'm guessing the correct answer to tell them is "it's going in the trash can." I think they may ask what you are going to do with the box to help determine whether they should offer you a discounted Lifetime deal or not. If you sell it to someone else, they'll make more money on the new customer than what you would pay to keep it (assuming the offer is $99 Lifetime). If you say you are going to throw it in the trash, TiVo will never see another dime from that box.

He put my on hold for a few minutes, came back and finalized the cancellation. I think he may have been conferring with a supervisor whether to offer me a deal or not. 

All of this is speculation on my part.


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## Balzer

mrizzo80 said:


> I recently bought a Roamio and a few weeks later called up to cancel my 2 tuner Premiere that I've had for over 3 years. As I was dialing I thought there was an outside chance they would offer me a heavily discounted Lifetime package to stay, but I didn't really care either way.
> 
> When I told him I wanted to cancel, he asked me "what are you going to do with the box?" I said something like "I don't know...maybe sell it, maybe put it in the closet." He then encouraged me to sell it due to the high resale value (yeah right!). Anyway...point being, if you call TiVo to cancel service I'm guessing the correct answer to tell them is "it's going in the trash can." I think they may ask what you are going to do with the box to help determine whether they should offer you a discounted Lifetime deal or not. If you sell it to someone else, they'll make more money on the new customer than what you would pay to keep it (assuming the offer is $99 Lifetime). If you say you are going to throw it in the trash, TiVo will never see another dime from that box.
> 
> He put my on hold for a few minutes, came back and finalized the cancellation. I think he may have been conferring with a supervisor whether to offer me a deal or not.
> 
> All of this is speculation on my part.


Hmm... thanks for the heads up... I guess when I call to cancel one of my Premieres in a couple weeks, I'll say that it's going to the "electronics recycling" or something.


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## L David Matheny

Balzer said:


> Hmm... thanks for the heads up... I guess when I call to cancel one of my Premieres in a couple weeks, I'll say that it's going to the "electronics recycling" or something.


I would just tell them the truth: An old TiVo without lifetime would probably end up in a stack with all of my other old electronics. With lifetime, it could be a gift and a new user for TiVo.


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## unitron

mrizzo80 said:


> I recently bought a Roamio and a few weeks later called up to cancel my 2 tuner Premiere that I've had for over 3 years. As I was dialing I thought there was an outside chance they would offer me a heavily discounted Lifetime package to stay, but I didn't really care either way.
> 
> When I told him I wanted to cancel, he asked me "what are you going to do with the box?" I said something like "I don't know...maybe sell it, maybe put it in the closet." He then encouraged me to sell it due to the high resale value (yeah right!). Anyway...point being, if you call TiVo to cancel service I'm guessing the correct answer to tell them is "it's going in the trash can." I think they may ask what you are going to do with the box to help determine whether they should offer you a discounted Lifetime deal or not. If you sell it to someone else, they'll make more money on the new customer than what you would pay to keep it (assuming the offer is $99 Lifetime). If you say you are going to throw it in the trash, TiVo will never see another dime from that box.
> 
> He put my on hold for a few minutes, came back and finalized the cancellation. I think he may have been conferring with a supervisor whether to offer me a deal or not.
> 
> All of this is speculation on my part.


Should have told them the only way it'll have any resale value worth you bothering to even put it on Craigslist is if they give you a deal on a lifetime sub for it like Premiere buyers are getting on their S3s.


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## kherr

How long was it till they gave lifetime deals on the P3?? The Romios have only been available for a short time and someone said that they are still selling P4s.


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## Balzer

Before purchasing my Roamio, I had 2 active Premieres, the first has a grandfathered $6.95 monthly service that I transferred from my original S1 to a TivoHD, then to the Premiere. The other Premiere is a $12.95 monthly.

So tonight I called to cancel the $12.95 monthly Premiere, because I only need 2 at this time. I was hoping the rep would offer the $99 lifetime to keep it active, I was prepared to say I'll only accept it if I can get the same $99 offer for the other Premiere too. If not, no big deal.

Well, unfortunately, there was no offer of anything for the Premiere I was cancelling. She initially asked if I knew someone who would want to take over the service and continue it. I said no, and that I was going to stick it in a closet for backup or if I ever need a 3rd TV. But she just said ok, I've cancelled the Tivo, effective 11/2 (this month already paid for). No if's and's, but's or other offers. 

Oh well, I have my Roamio that I purchased the reduced $399 lifetime, and the Premiere that should continue to be $6.95 monthly, so that's not bad.


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## unitron

Balzer said:


> Before purchasing my Roamio, I had 2 active Premieres, the first has a grandfathered $6.95 monthly service that I transferred from my original S1 to a TivoHD, then to the Premiere. The other Premiere is a $12.95 monthly.
> 
> So tonight I called to cancel the $12.95 monthly Premiere, because I only need 2 at this time. I was hoping the rep would offer the $99 lifetime to keep it active, I was prepared to say I'll only accept it if I can get the same $99 offer for the other Premiere too. If not, no big deal.
> 
> Well, unfortunately, there was no offer of anything for the Premiere I was cancelling. She initially asked if I knew someone who would want to take over the service and continue it. I said no, and that I was going to stick it in a closet for backup or if I ever need a 3rd TV. But she just said ok, I've cancelled the Tivo, effective 11/2 (this month already paid for). No if's and's, but's or other offers.
> 
> Oh well, I have my Roamio that I purchased the reduced $399 lifetime, and the Premiere that should continue to be $6.95 monthly, so that's not bad.


So you never came right out and told them you wanted the lifetime deal?


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## Balzer

unitron said:


> So you never came right out and told them you wanted the lifetime deal?


No. I figured if they wanted me to keep the box active, they would have offered it. In retrospect, it wouldn't have hurt to ask.


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## overFEDEXed

unitron said:


> So you never came right out and told them you wanted the lifetime deal?


I was in a similar situation and called. The best that they would do was put my $6.95 a month two-tuner Premiere, on Lifetime for $199.99.

I asked if I could then put that $6.95 plan on another Premiere and she said " No, it has to stay with the box???

The Tivo csr from another call, told me that she could transfer that $6.95 plan to ANY OTHER Premiere.

CSR roulette once again.

Anyway, I think that I will just keep the $6.95 plan, unless they sell me the Lifetime for $99. I like my Roamio Plus so much, compared to the slow, sluggish Premiere, that it probably won't be around much longer.


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## akaussie

I recently purchased a Roamio (from Amazon) and added Lifetime service. I have a Premiere which I've had for just over 3 years on month to month. I called to cancel service/inquire about lifetime on the Premiere. Was offered Lifetime on it for $99!
The CSR stated that because I had the Premiere for over 3 years they could offer lifetime for $99, otherwise it would be $199.00.
Very happy with how it played out!


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## RonRamsey

I just called about my Premiere XL that was 3 years old in June. I also have a Roamio Pro with lifetime. She checked with her supervisor and was told that there was no $99 lifetime for my 3 year old premiere.


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## tvmaster2

I hope that Tivo woman reads this stuff, 'cause they really are a pretty messed-up company to deal with from a consistency standpoint.
roulette indeed


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## overFEDEXed

RonRamsey said:


> I just called about my Premiere XL that was 3 years old in June. I also have a Roamio Pro with lifetime. She checked with her supervisor and was told that there was no $99 lifetime for my 3 year old premiere.


When I called, I now remember the rep saying something about my box not being on its plan for three years, so she couldn't do the $99 Lifetime, but could do $199.

I just looked at my account and it has an activation date of 2007! (I think that was a plan transfer from an HD unit) I will tell you that it has been on this grandfathered $6.95 plan, for less than three years.
Maybe with me, that is the catch.

I will call back and try to get the $99 LT or at least get some clarification.


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## steve614

tvmaster2 said:


> I hope that Tivo woman reads this stuff, 'cause they really are a pretty messed-up company to deal with from a consistency standpoint.
> roulette indeed


Who, you mean TiVoMargret? She's the VP of design so I doubt she has any influence over customer service.


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## ort

I hate how complicated this stuff is.

Why do they make it so hard? It's just frustrating as a consumer.

I shouldn't have to come up with complicated plans on how I want to upgrade this stuff.


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## HeatherA

I just cancelled service on a premier that I replaced with a Roamio a few months back. I would have kept it in a heartbeat if I'd been offered $99 lifetime. The guy on the phone was nearly silent the entire call and had me on hold for ages. Didn't offer a thing... just cancelled my box.


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## atmuscarella

ort said:


> I hate how complicated this stuff is.
> 
> Why do they make it so hard? It's just frustrating as a consumer.
> 
> I shouldn't have to come up with complicated plans on how I want to upgrade this stuff.


It is only complicated when we want deals, like being offered $99 lifetime as a retention offer. The problem with retention offers is they change and are not advertised. Without these forums most of use wouldn't know about them unless we were offered one. The same thing happens with many services like cable TV or telephone. I would look at them as a fire sale, if you catch one your lucky if you don't, don't worry about it.


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## shamilian

It is actually not that unfair....

If you pay for at least 3 years of services with a previous generation of Tivo then they offer a $99 deal... This has you pay more than the lifetime rate would have paid. If you have gotten some lower rate they will not typically offer the program. They may offer it at a higher amount like $199. 

They just want the total to be more than the lifetime rate...


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## gigaguy

Yay, for us newbies wanting Premiere deals. New Roamio purchasers can now lifetime their Premieres for $99 or $199 to sell them off. 
...now to find a lifetimed 4 tuner...


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## unitron

steve614 said:


> Who, you mean TiVoMargret? She's the VP of design so I doubt she has any influence over customer service.


If TiVo had any sense, they'd have someone high up in CS monitoring this site even more closely than she does.

Just look at the "expired cookie" fiasco from last February--people here had it figured out and a workaround invented while TiVo was still trying to wake up and realize that there was a problem.


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## davezatz

unitron said:


> Just look at the "expired cookie" fiasco from last February--people here had it figured out and a workaround invented while TiVo was still trying to wake up and realize that there was a problem.


And then word for word, implement the update as posted to the community...


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## DCIFRTHS

unitron said:


> If TiVo had any sense, they'd have someone high up in CS monitoring this site even more closely than she does.
> 
> Just look at the "expired cookie" fiasco from last February--people here had it figured out and a workaround invented while TiVo was still trying to wake up and realize that there was a problem.


What was the "expired cookie" fiasco?


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## SNJpage1

DCIFTHS, because of a date in the programing of Tivo Desktop, it caused a problem where you couldn't transfer programs from your Tivo to the computer. Every one had to go in and edit a file in the software.


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## Dr_Zoidberg

When I purchased Lifetime for my XL4, they allowed me to get Lifetime for my HD for $99.


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## nooneuknow

Dr_Zoidberg said:


> When I purchased Lifetime for my XL4, they allowed me to get Lifetime for my HD for $99.


I'll bet that the devil in the details is that the HD had been on a monthly plan, and had been so for at least a couple years. They wanted that HD to remain a subscription they could count in their quarterly reports, rather than risk it being discontinued and put in a closet.

Sometimes it actually DOES pay to be a monthly subscriber.

Timing is everything, though. It's hard to predict the best course, when you don't know what they are or aren't going to offer and when.


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## unitron

SNJpage1 said:


> DCIFTHS, because of a date in the programing of Tivo Desktop, it caused a problem where you couldn't transfer programs from your Tivo to the computer. Every one had to go in and edit a file in the software.


I think it was actually a hard date coded into the TiVo software, because although they issued a patch for Desktop that apparently did the same thing as the workaround invented here, they had to issue updates for S2 and S3 software, and didn't issue an updated version of Desktop.


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## DCIFRTHS

SNJpage1 said:


> DCIFTHS, because of a date in the programing of Tivo Desktop, it caused a problem where you couldn't transfer programs from your Tivo to the computer. Every one had to go in and edit a file in the software.





unitron said:


> I think it was actually a hard date coded into the TiVo software, because although they issued a patch for Desktop that apparently did the same thing as the workaround invented here, they had to issue updates for S2 and S3 software, and didn't issue an updated version of Desktop.


Thanks for the info.


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## jlin

gigaguy said:


> Yay, for us newbies wanting Premiere deals. New Roamio purchasers can now lifetime their Premieres for $99 or $199 to sell them off.
> ...now to find a lifetimed 4 tuner...


Is that for sure? I'd definitely buy a Lifetime Roamio just to get $99 Lifetime on my Premier.


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## midlomuncher

My Premiere (2TB) on a $99 annual sub was up in September. I called to cancel the service.

The rep asked if I wanted to transfer it with the sub to someone. I said no and that I was going to stick it in the closet.

They came back with a $199 Lifetime offer. I said no and then asked for $99 Lifetime. The rep had to ask the supervisor. They approved the $99 Lifetime. I agreed and then sold it on ebay for $375 minus fees.

I had already purchased a Roamio Pro with Lifetime and I'm a long time TiVo subscriber.


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## overFEDEXed

nooneuknow said:


> I'll bet that the devil in the details is that the HD had been on a monthly plan, and had been so for at least a couple years. They wanted that HD to remain a subscription they could count in their quarterly reports, rather than risk it being discontinued and put in a closet.
> 
> Sometimes it actually DOES pay to be a monthly subscriber.
> 
> Timing is everything, though. It's hard to predict the best course, when you don't know what they are or aren't going to offer and when.


On my Premiere;

I have a two-tuner, that has been on its plan ($6.95) for years. The rep told me that I could sell it and transfer the plan with the box, then another rep said no.

Another rep said that I could transfer the $6.95 plan to an Elite, then the next rep said no. They said that the plan stays with the box???

On another call the rep said that they could offer me the $199 Lifetime, not the $99, because the box had not been on it's plan for at least three years???
Yes it has.

When I asked the rep about doing the $199 lifetime, could I transfer the $6.95 plan to a brand new, never activated two-tuner Premiere, they said no. It could only transfer to a active or recently deactivated box, not a new one.

On the HD's;

Way back when, I called Tivo to buy an Elite. They had already put the $150/$99 LT on my HD's for me. The rep said that I should buy some more HD's, put the $99 lifetime on them, then sell to cover the cost of a four tuner Elite. The "TOP" box, at that time. They did put the $99 LT on many more boxes. I don't even remember how many all together.

I have purchased over a dozen Tivo's, but on some of these $99 LT requests, I bought nothing from them. I guess that over the years, they made their money off of me. Who knows.

On the Roamio;

No deals that I have heard about, on plans. I did ask about transferring my $6.95 plan to a Basic. They said "Not yet, they are too new"

The Tivo reps say they put notes on your account when you call. My advice is if they make an offer, jump on it then and there, unless you like playing "The CSR roulette"


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## BaileySVU2001

Before the Roamio's were released, I picked up a new XL4 at a steep discount on Amazon to replace an old Premiere. I called to cancel the Premiere and every time they gave me a free month to think about it. Finally it was due to bill again (at $19.99) and I called and said I wanted to cancel and they offered me $199 lifetime or a free moca adapter. Instead of canceling, the CSR gave me ANOTHER free month to think about it. I called back the next month to do the lifetime and the new CSR said that offer was no longer available and that I had been comp'd 7 of the last 12 months (very true). He also said the notes indicated that I had asked for a free moca adapter. So, I ended up canceling. 

Talked to tech support tonight and they asked me how my free moca adapter was working out.


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## gigaguy

I have a used Premiere basic I got 3 months ago in the box w/ slide remote, on the $15 month rate. Yesterday I got an insane CL deal for a New in the box XL4 w/lifetime and 3yr warr.

When I called TiVO to transfer over the XL4 I asked if there was any deal on my basic Premiere and they said yes, you can Lifetime it for $99. I was surprised...and paid it! Did they do that because I added the 'used' XL4? seems crazy to me. Everytime this used XL4 is sold Tivo will offer discounts to Tivos a buyer already has. How are they making money doing that? not complaining but...


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## BaileySVU2001

Very nice. I wonder how much leeway the CSR's have. Seems like there's different offers based on the CSR's mood.


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## unitron

gigaguy said:


> I have a used Premiere basic I got 3 months ago in the box w/ slide remote, on the $15 month rate. Yesterday I got an insane CL deal for a New in the box XL4 w/lifetime and 3yr warr.
> 
> When I called TiVO to transfer over the XL4 I asked if there was any deal on my basic Premiere and they said yes, you can Lifetime it for $99. I was surprised...and paid it! Did they do that because I added the 'used' XL4? seems crazy to me. Everytime this used XL4 is sold Tivo will offer discounts to Tivos a buyer already has. How are they making money doing that? not complaining but...


CL?


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## BaileySVU2001

I think that means Craigslist.


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## gigaguy

yes Craiglist, the seller never used the XL4, but it was on his acct and transferred to my acct fine. Apparently he has 5-6 Tivos, including new Roamios. My older used Premiere must have been in service 3 years before me, but a few weeks ago when I called TiVo they said they could only lifetime it for $199 and that was only if I was buying a new Roamio. I guess it passed the 3 yr mark. They must do the $99 Lifetime on older Premieres if you also have an XL4 or a Roamio? I think they did mention the XL4 had been bought at full price.
I like how TiVo credits 2nd owners like they were the orig full price buyer, can't complain..


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## bobdole888

So what happens if I buy a Romio and get them to give me a $99 lifetime for my Premiere. If I later return the Romio, what happens to the Premiere that has been converted to lifetime?


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## gigaguy

I think it stays lifetimed. but I wouldn't return the Roamio to Tivo, I would sell it 3rd party. The main effect on your Premiere, I think, is that you could not use it to leverage other discounts later on on other boxes you add to your acct. No multi-box discount off of it or other deals.

I considered this too, but I wouldn't return the Roamio, I'd sell it to someone.
Roamio has the 1 yr commitment, so if someone stops paying the monthly fee before 12 months, they will be charged the $75 early termination fee.


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## BaileySVU2001

I just talked to Tivo again about an old Premiere. They said since it's been deactivated for over 30 days it does not qualify for discounted lifetime. The best they can do is the multi-service discount (since I have a current XL4) of $12.95/month. 

Was hoping to get it up and running again or the basement, but not at $12.95/month. Looks like it's back to the closet. Is there something I'm not doing right when I'm talking to tivo? Seems like discounted lifetime subscriptions are pretty easily obtained from reading the boards.


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## gigaguy

I'm guessing that if you activate it for a couple of months TiVo might be more agreeable to offer lifetime discount on it. or jut keep calling and asking.


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## davezatz

I'd think TiVo would love having additional boxes to report on their quarterly call... no idea why they're not activating these old ones for cheap. I've got a 2-tuner Premiere that hasn't been powered up in like 10 or 12 months. And it'll never be powered up again unless they float me a $99 offer.


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## MeInDallas

I keep hoping that maybe that email will come thru like it did last year, at the end of 2012 for the $49 lifetime on deactivated boxes. I know some of us got them and some didnt. I've got several just sitting in the closet that will just sit there for years to come.


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## NJChris

I called to cancel my premiere since I got a roamio. The rep asked what I was going to do with it and I said "I don't know". He recommended selling it and he will flag it for the $99 lifetime if I sell it to someone within 3 months and gave me a credit on my bill for that. He said the person can call to transfer the Tivo to them and get the $99 lifetime when they do it.


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## buscuitboy

NJChris said:


> I called to cancel my premiere since I got a roamio. The rep asked what I was going to do with it and I said "I don't know". He recommended selling it and he will flag it for the $99 lifetime if I sell it to someone within 3 months and gave me a credit on my bill for that. He said the person can call to transfer the Tivo to them and get the $99 lifetime when they do it.


I posted a Series 3 I have on Craigslist. It currently doesn't have any kind of subscription to it. I posted in the ad how its eligible for the $99 lifetime offer. I got someone interested.

They actually want to get the $99 lifetime offer on it, but says they don't have a TiVo account and were therefore told they can't get this offer. Says it can only be done for current subscribers. In turn, they want me to get it lifetimed and will then pay me the extra $100. I told them I will look into and I am not sure I want to mess with all that.

I know I was able to get this $99 offer in the past on another Series 3 when I initially subscribed (& made it the 4th TiVo on my account), but then "changed my mind" less than 30 days. They then basically offered me the $99 lifetime offer and then also credited the initial $9.99 from the first month.

Now, if I can maybe get TiVo to "flag" it for the $99 lifetime offer as mentioned here, this seems like a better & easier option. Of course, after lifetiming it, being able to sell it on ebay for slightly more then might be an even better option too.


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## gigaguy

Nor sure why you would assume a new subscriber could get a $99 deal. some longterm users with multiple active TiVos can't always get it.
I'm cautious I guess, but I would not pay for a used 'lifetimed' TiVo unless the unit is currently certified lifetime by TiVo.


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## troasti

I just upgraded to roamio + mini and they are being shipped. I have two premieres. One I paid monthly sub for 3 years and they let me put lifetime on it for 99$. My question is the second premiere will have been on a monthly sub for 2 years at the end of the month. Will they offer lifetime for 199$ on it? Should I wait until it has been exactly 2 years to call?


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## gigaguy

What would it hurt to call now? You never know. I assume it will be $199 to lifetime it if it's less than 3 years activation. at the least they can set it up to automatically process the $199 cc charge when it qualifies. The details will show up in your online tivo acct.


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## bobdole888

troasti said:


> I just upgraded to roamio + mini and they are being shipped. I have two premieres. One I paid monthly sub for 3 years and they let me put lifetime on it for 99$. My question is the second premiere will have been on a monthly sub for 2 years at the end of the month. Will they offer lifetime for 199$ on it? Should I wait until it has been exactly 2 years to call?


I called to today to ask about a premier that I have for almost 1 year.
They gave me the $199 deal and scheduled for it switch over as soon as 1 year is up.
I asked for $99 deal, but the guy said only 3 year old unit qualify.
I didn't ask if they make exceptions. Anyway $199 was good enough for me.
Most likely I would have had to buy roamio to get $99, but I don't really need a roamio.


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## Brighton Line

I purchased a Roamio Pro with the past Amazon deal and call Tivo to activate it with lifetime with the multi-discount. I have a Premier at $14.99 a month 1 year commitment and an Premier XL on a $99 a year.

I was told the standard Premier was only 2 years old and not eligible for $99 lifetime. The XL was eligible for $99 lifetime but the Customer Service rep did not want to give it to me since it just renewed $99 for the year in November.

I pleaded with her, saying I understand that I just paid, can you please give me the lifetime on it. She refused.

Then I said I was giving it as a gift it didn't matter I wanted to give it with lifetime. She relented and said she would do it. Gave the CC number and everything.

Two days latter, still the XL did not update to status 5 Lifetime, still at status 3 Good Standing but my Roamio did update to lifetime.

Called back and this is reflected online, she put in the $99 lifetime as the NEXT PLAN when my annual expires in November 2014. 

So there is no way I can see to sell this box with lifetime as I can't take a screen shot of the info, I have an email saying my next service plain is lifetime but the email does not identify the TSN or anything that shows what box it is referring to.

I think the best bet for me is come 2/1/14 when my standard Premier comes off its annual commitment is to cancel service on that box. I don't need three boxes in Ten tuners with only two TV's. Both the Roamio Pro and XL have larger HD's.

Maybe when i cancel they might offer the $199 for that box, could still sell it at a profit. 

Just don't know what to do...


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## troasti

troasti said:


> I just upgraded to roamio + mini and they are being shipped. I have two premieres. One I paid monthly sub for 3 years and they let me put lifetime on it for 99$. My question is the second premiere will have been on a monthly sub for 2 years at the end of the month. Will they offer lifetime for 199$ on it? Should I wait until it has been exactly 2 years to call?


I called to "cancel" the other premiere which I have paid a monthly sub for 2 years. They offered me a free month and to discount it to a monthly 9.99$/sub or 199$ lifetime. I asked about getting another 99$ sub and she said it had to be monthly for 3 years. I guess it would be a wash as it will be 3 years in 10 months. So 99$/month X 10 = 100$ Then it will be eligible for 99$ lifetime = 199$ lifetime sub. Anyways I guess I could keep calling and ask for a manager or something to try to get a lifetime for 99$.


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## chef616

I have a lifetime premiere elite and a 2 tuner premiere that is on a monthly plan ($12.95). I called and told them that I was considering replacing the 2 tuner premiere with a mini, but wanted to see what type of deal I could get to add lifetime. They offered me the $99 lifetime sub and I took it. Call took about 5 minutes.


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## bobdole888

chef616 said:


> I have a lifetime premiere elite and a 2 tuner premiere that is on a monthly plan ($12.95). I called and told them that I was considering replacing the 2 tuner premiere with a mini, but wanted to see what type of deal I could get to add lifetime. They offered me the $99 lifetime sub and I took it. Call took about 5 minutes.


Is your premier more than 3yr old?


----------



## bacevedo

I have a Premiere that I got back in January 2011 that was set to auto renew tomorrow (1/20/2014) for the annual plan at $129. I called today and asked them if I could get a better deal, like $99, on lifetime because I was thinking of canceling my service. I wasn't lying, I have been thinking of canceling because we do almost all of our viewing through Roku and streaming.

The woman was very friendly and said that they are doing deals for premieres but it depends on how old it is. She said since mine is 3 years old, she could do lifetime for $99. There is no other device on my account, so this isn't tied to the purchase of a Roamio. I have had the annual plan on it since I owned it. I used to have two premieres, but sold the other one about 3 months ago.

So others might be able to call and get lifetime for $99 if your premiere is at least 3 years old. She seemed to imply that was the only requirement.

I was very happy with paying one final $99 fee to keep this premiere for recording some live OTA TV. We rarely use it, but it's nice to have for things that we can't stream.


----------



## lujan

bacevedo said:


> ...
> 
> So others might be able to call and get lifetime for $99 if your premiere is at least 3 years old. She seemed to imply that was the only requirement.
> 
> ...


I think she meant paying on it for at least 3 years right? I have a Premiere but I have never activated it and it should be around 3 years. Would I qualify if I've never used it? Also, I have 2 other Premiers with lifetime already so this would be the 3rd.


----------



## bacevedo

lujan said:


> I think she meant paying on it for at least 3 years right? I have a Premiere but I have never activated it and it should be around 3 years. Would I qualify if I've never used it? Also, I have 2 other Premiers with lifetime already so this would be the 3rd.


I assume that it would require 3 years of some form of payment on it. She said 3 years old, but mine was active for the last 3 years, so that may have been implied.


----------



## chef616

bobdole888 said:


> Is your premier more than 3yr old?


Yeah, it is just over 3 years old.


----------



## TiVoTJung

bobdole888 said:


> Is your premier more than 3yr old?


I just started my tivo subscription on two premiere xl4s in november of last year.

my account has to be at least 3 years old to get any kind of deal?


----------



## CrispyCritter

TiVoTJung said:


> I just started my tivo subscription on two premiere xl4s in november of last year.
> 
> my account has to be at least 3 years old to get any kind of deal?


At least a couple of years before any deal. TiVo subsidizes the hardware, so you need to have paid for a sub for a while before they make any real money off of you. They're not willing to deal until you're past that point.


----------



## TiVoTJung

CrispyCritter said:


> At least a couple of years before any deal. TiVo subsidizes the hardware, so you need to have paid for a sub for a while before they make any real money off of you. They're not willing to deal until you're past that point.


i bought both units off of ebay, still no deal huh?


----------



## rcanoza

Recently called to cancel a Premiere XL and after making it clear I didn't care about maintaining 4-year-old hardware, was offered $99 lifetime. CSR actually had it in her script that this would enhance eBay resale value, which did give me a chuckle. Of course something like $350 in subscription fees were already sunk into it.

AFAIK the company only make money off selling the analytics anyway


----------



## kherr

... they make money on lawsuits, they lose money on the hardware and monthly fees ..... AFAIK they have never shown a profit on the sales side of the business .....


----------



## rcanoza

OK there's that too


----------



## thegink

I purchased a used 3-year old TiVo Premiere on Amazon for $60. Bought a WD 2TB hard drive and successfully put that in. I had about 5 months of service into it at $12.95 a month. After reading this forum I decided to take a chance and ask to cancel my service. I told them I wanted to close the account to save on money and that I planned on throwing the device away. They offered me the $99 lifetime service. Of course, I took the deal. Very satisfied. Thanks to everyone who posted.


----------



## indyrobb

I have 2 premiers that I just replaced with a Roamio and Mini. I called to cancel the premiers as I no longer needed them. The rep did ask me what I was planning on doing with them, and I told him I was planning on gifting one to my sister, and keeping the other as a spare just in case something happened with the Roamio (oh the horror!). He offered me the 99 dollar lifetime on the one I've had over 3 years, but the one that is turning 2 years in 1 week was the 199. 

I jumped all over the 99 dollar deal. I went ahead and cancelled the other one, and truly will keep it around as a spare.


----------



## gigaguy

TiVoTJung, 
I don't think they care where you got it or how long, as long as it's been active for 3 years. I had my used Craigslist P4 for only 2-3 months when I got the $99 deal. They offered it when I activated a used XL4 I got off craigslist.


----------



## Joe01880

I bought a Roamio Pro on 1/31 using the advisory panel code. The guy on the phone transferred my annual MSD plan from my Premiere to the Roamio. Upon completing my deal he said nothing about continuing service on the Premiere so I asked if they had any deal's to keep the Premiere active. After a few minutes on hold he offered me $199 Lifetime on my 3 year old Premiere. The MSD annual rate I had on the Premiere was $99 a year. So I paid $99 a year x 3= 297 then $199 for Lifetime Service costing a total of $496 for service. I paid $67 for the Premiere online for a grand total of $563 invested in my Premiere. Not including the 2 TB HDD I put in it right after I bought it at $150.
These things are pricey indeed but I still love them! I just ordered the Pro slide remote for $49, it should be here Friday.


----------



## TiVoTJung

gigaguy said:


> TiVoTJung,
> I don't think they care where you got it or how long, as long as it's been active for 3 years. I had my used Craigslist P4 for only 2-3 months when I got the $99 deal. They offered it when I activated a used XL4 I got off craigslist.


ill have to try it, cant hurt


----------



## gigaguy

Talking prices- 
my used P4 w/lifetime cost me $175. 
the box was $30, lifetime $99 and 3 months service before lifetime was $45.

my unused XL4 w/lifetime was $225. has the ext warr.

both from craigslist..


----------



## Coolgrnmen

Would anyone like to provide advice on getting the best deal on a 4-tuner? I'm brand spanking new (kind of) and looking to get a TiVo for Verizon FiOS. I've had RCN (which includes TiVo!) for the past year, but they don't service the new building I'm moving to.


----------



## cr33p

I have some units for sale, PM me


----------



## buscuitboy

gigaguy said:


> TiVoTJung,
> I don't think they care where you got it or how long, as long as it's been active for 3 years. I had my used Craigslist P4 for only 2-3 months when I got the $99 deal. They offered it when I activated a used XL4 I got off craigslist.


Is there any way of telling how long a Premiere has been in service from a previous owner as well as how long I have had it? I got a refurb 4-tuner Premiere off Woot. It is monthly and it running great, but I'd like to find out how long its been in service so I can then maybe try to get this $99 lifetime offer on it when it reaches 3yrs like suggested here.


----------



## unitron

buscuitboy said:


> Is there any way of telling how long a Premiere has been in service from a previous owner as well as how long I have had it? I got a refurb 4-tuner Premiere off Woot. It is monthly and it running great, but I'd like to find out how long its been in service so I can then maybe try to get this $99 lifetime offer on it when it reaches 3yrs like suggested here.


Contact TiVo, give them the TSN, and ask when it was first put into service.


----------



## replaytv

buscuitboy said:


> Is there any way of telling how long a Premiere has been in service from a previous owner as well as how long I have had it? I got a refurb 4-tuner Premiere off Woot. It is monthly and it running great, but I'd like to find out how long its been in service so I can then maybe try to get this $99 lifetime offer on it when it reaches 3yrs like suggested here.


Someone posted in another thread that there is a way to find out how many hours on a hard drive ( and thus the TiVo in most cases ) , but I think it involved removing the hard drive and temporary installing it a computer.


----------



## telemark

Confused here. Are there 2 different or 3 different lifetime offers going on for the Premieres?

For example, if I find a brand new unactivated Premiere for a good price, is it's lifetime going to be $199 or like $499?


----------



## jrtroo

The deals have primarily been to keep a long term subscription active. A new box is going to get standard pricing offers.


----------



## ducker

it brings a tear to my eye to think I dropped $400 for my lifetime sub on my premiere.


----------



## jrtroo

Well, that box is still worth $300-350 instead of $30, so its not for naught.


----------



## mpnret

I just scored a $99. lifetime sub on my 1 year old XL4. Sequence of events was I purchased Roamio Pro about a month ago with the AP code. I transferred my monthly service from the XL4 to the Roamio and started a new monthly on the XL4 just to keep it active to transfer shows and season passes and watch the copy protected shows that wouldn't transfer. The new monthly had a 30 day money back guarantee so the plan was to cancel before the 30 day mark. I called to do that and inquired about lifetime sub cost. The best they would do is $199. so I agreed to cancel. When I got the confirmation email I looked at the serial # they canceled and it was my new Roamio. I called back in a little ticked over all the time I was wasting over their mistake. I had a very understanding pleasant rep and she was able to get the $99. lifetime sub approved. She also mentioned a possible low monthly plan for 9.95 or less. I went for the lifetime being I will most likely sell the XL4.


----------



## MeInDallas

I was real surprised today, I called to cancel service on my last remaining XL4, and the lady I spoke with kept asking me what I was going to do with the box, give it away, sell it on Ebay, sell to a friend, and I said no its going in the closet with the others for now. I paid too much money to just give it to someone. She asked me would I be interested in the $99 lifetime deal and I jumped on it! I was kinda shocked she gave it to me on a year old box, but really happy to keep one of the old girls on subscription. I probably shouldve asked if I couldve gotten it on one of the 2 tuner models and used it for over the air, but I think if I decide to sell the XL4 I could get more money out of it.


----------



## eric102

Best I could do on a 2 year old 2 tuner Premier was the normal $199 most others are getting or she gave me the option of a 6.95 monthly plan with no commitment. I decided to take the $199 and keep the box since this is my original TiVo that future service discounts are based on.


----------



## MMaleto

I first got TIVO in 2/2011, bought the 2 year extension and it died after 1 year. They sent a replacement and since it was a new unit, I had to buy another 2 year extension. I did.

Since 2011 I was on a monthly plan and decided I did not want to pay a monthly so I called asking for a deal. This was in December of 2013, almost 3 years (2 months short) They offered none. I called about a week later and asked for the 99 lifetime, they refused so I told them to cancel. He talked me into "thinking about it" for 3 months free, I said ok. 

A month later I decided to try to get the 99 deal again, no budging on their end. Said I did not qualify. So in January 2014, I canceled TIVO. They tried to talk me into selling it on CL or eBay; or give to someone who would use it. I told them it would stay in my closet.

I only use TIVO to pause and rewind, very seldom. Mostly when someone would call or I had to take a BR break. I have a cable card in it and do not miss cable (had very few channels). I am angry with TIVO. I sent an email to them showing how I paid over $700 over the 2 years and 11 month (including everything) and others were getting deals. No budging. 

in 35 months I paid them 659.63 in monthly fees and 59.90 in extended warrantees!

So it sits, and will. At this point, even though I miss it just a tiny bit, it has become principle.


----------



## CrispyCritter

MMaleto said:


> So it sits, and will. At this point, even though I miss it just a tiny bit, it has become principle.


I think you're missing the point of the policy deal being talked about here: the deal is if you buy a new Roamio and subscribe it, then you are offered the $99 lifetime on the old Premiere that's been subscribed for 3 years. That way TiVo gets an additional subbed unit on their records (looks nice to investors).

Nobody at TiVo has ever said there is a 3 year policy deal for retention (there's no extra sub for them to report), and very few folks have ever gotten it throughout the years (and people have been trying and complaining for years.) You're in good company.


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## Brighton Line

CrispyCritter said:


> I think you're missing the point of the polic


Agree, poster is missing the point. Has to be subscribed for 3 years, one your anniversary they will offer $99. Subscribed not what you are paying per month. The Tivo can't be sitting in a closet without a subscription to get teh deal.
I am paying $99 a year from an old deal. I just paid $99 for the year, still have 11 months but unit is just over 3 years old. My next scheduled plan in November is... yes... $99 lifetime.

My Premier that was 2 years and 1 months old, they offered me $199 lifetime on and I took it. Still had 11 months extended warranty on it. I sold it and made double what lifetime cost but yest still did not recoup ALL that I've spent but it was a bit helpful.

FWIW


----------



## MMaleto

Yes, I missed the intent of the thread. 

It will continue to sit in the closet. I cannot justify spending the monthly fee when I only use it for an occasional pause. Netflix does not work and Amazon Prime never worked (both as advertised). 

$15.00 per month for a TV guide and an occasional pause for the cause; well, not here.

Thanks for the redirection. I misunderstood the thread.


----------



## eboydog

Just got off the phone with Tivo and found a little more detail about the offers for lifetime service esp relating to those who have purchased used Premieres.

One key on inactive Premieres is that they must be less than 30 days active, if they have been inactive for more then most likely they won't be eligible for $99 or $199 lifetime service.

I have 3 Premieres and all of them had been inactive for longer than 30 days and the best off for lifetime service was at the $399 multi-discount fee which is NUTS!

As I explained to the rep. there is no way I can justify spending $400 on lifetime service on 4-5 year old Tivo and I guess I'm going to take the power supplies and hard drives out and throw them out. might be a interest later in the parts as Tivo has no interest in re-subscribing them at a affordable rate as being inactive for more than 30 days they don't even qualify for the less expensive monthly rate.

A word of advice for anyone selling used ones, it would be worth more in resale value for you to keep them on you account active if possible rather than take them off and let them sit while you look for a buyer, I thought for sure the ones I had hadn't been inactive for very long but then again 30 days isn't that long but the ones I have are of no value as if I going to even pay the regular monthly rate, I would buy a refurbished 4 tuner Premiere from the Tivo outlet store online.

After being a 20 minute call to Tivo. I really question what their successful business plan is, granted the new Roameo is a good Tivo but they old Tivo are going to filling up the landfill at this rate since Tivo has very little interest in used Tivos.


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## jrtroo

They have to draw the line someplace, and you are just on the wrong side of that line.


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## eboydog

Yea, I know. I was willing to pay $199 but instead they won't get anything but I do know I'm not giving up and I will try a couple more call in before I call it quits since there is a history of different customer service reps giving different deals. 

One thing weird, one of the used Tivo I called in apparently had no service history which I found odd which implies someone had it and never activated it.


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## jrtroo

I just got a $199 offer on a used box I purchased for $25, not too shabby.

What I did was to go onto monthly service, wait a few weeks, and then cancel. Box was only two years old, so they would/could (i tried) not offer the $99.


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## Shagger

I was able to get the $99 lifetime service instantly when I mentioned getting a dvr, eBay, resell on my 3+ year old Premiere. Thanks to all!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk


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## Cybernut

Two weeks ago (3/3/14) I called Tivo and told them that I would like to buy my friend's Tivo Basic (TCD746320). My friend was on the line with me. His Tivo is less than 3 years old...activated on 7/7/11 (see attached pic of my tivo.com account), but he has been regularly paying his monthly fee every month since then. So at this point he only had it activated for 2 years 8 months. 

I asked how much would it cost for the lifetime and was told $199. I balked and said I would not pay $200 for a 3-year old tivo, since I already had a Tivo Premiere and this was meant to be an additional Tivo. I said I would only buy his tivo off him if the lifetime was offered at $99. After she played the game of "let me look into what I can do", she then came back a few minutes later and said, yes.

SO - this whole thing of at least 3-years of subscription to avail of the $99 lifetime is nonsense. It is really arbitrary and up to them. I can see that it may need to be at least 2 years on month-to-month subscription or even close to 3-years but as my case proved, it doesn't need to be full 3-years to avail of $99 lifetime. But if this is your first or only tivo, your leverage may be less.

BTW, the Roamio (in pic) is not mine any longer though it is listed under me for some reason . I bought the Roamio to avail of MSD on lifetime and then sold it to this same friend who donated me his Tivo Basic, the one I got $99 lifetime for.


----------



## wbrightfl

I just cancelled my TIVO service and was told I am 2 months away from getting the special $99 lifetime offer. I cancelled anyway. Bright House cable finally released a High Def user interface and programming guide, which is now in the same league as the TIVO UI/Programming guide, so I went back to the BH Cisco DVR, which doesn't have popup ads and gives me access to On Demand functions which the TIVO did not. I would have kept my TIVO active if it was an all-in-one box, but its not. I use ROKU for streaming since TIVO doesn't offer Amazon Prime so there wasn't really a need to stay wit TIVO. I have loved my TIVO DVR but they haven't kept up with the times, letting the cable companies improve their DVRs and software to better compete. 

Anyway, the cancellation was quick and painless.


----------



## jrtroo

Goodbye. You let the cableco win.


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## tarheelblue32

You are dead to me.


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## eric102

Don't worry, he'll be back after a few months with a cable co. DVR.


----------



## unitron

wbrightfl said:


> I just cancelled my TIVO service and was told I am 2 months away from getting the special $99 lifetime offer. I cancelled anyway. Bright House cable finally released a High Def user interface and programming guide, which is now in the same league as the TIVO UI/Programming guide, so I went back to the BH Cisco DVR, which doesn't have popup ads and gives me access to On Demand functions which the TIVO did not. I would have kept my TIVO active if it was an all-in-one box, but its not. I use ROKU for streaming since TIVO doesn't offer Amazon Prime so there wasn't really a need to stay wit TIVO. I have loved my TIVO DVR but they haven't kept up with the times, letting the cable companies improve their DVRs and software to better compete.
> 
> Anyway, the cancellation was quick and painless.


With lifetime, you could sell for maybe $300, without you'll be lucky to get $50.


----------



## ejuand

I upgraded to a Roamio.
Kept the premier active to transfer season passes.
I called to cancel and they offered me the lifetime for $99.
I had the dvr for 2 yrs 11 months.


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## tivoboy

ejuand said:


> I upgraded to a Roamio.
> Kept the premier active to transfer season passes.
> I called to cancel and they offered me the lifetime for $99.
> I had the dvr for 2 yrs 11 months.


A bit OT but is there a link to the process to do the SP transfer?

When you setup the romaio and the premier was on the same network, were you able to transfer any shows?


----------



## spaldingclan

tivoboy said:


> A bit OT but is there a link to the process to do the SP transfer?
> 
> When you setup the romaio and the premier was on the same network, were you able to transfer any shows?


https://tivo.com/apps/login/show.do?cams_original_url=/apps/spm.do


----------



## Cybernut

ejuand said:


> I upgraded to a Roamio.
> Kept the premier active to transfer season passes.
> I called to cancel and they offered me the lifetime for $99.
> I had the dvr for 2 yrs 11 months.


Thank you ejuand. Yet another example of less than 3 years of subscription to get $99 lifetime. In my case it was 2 years 8 months.


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## d_bondi

I have 2 TiVo Premieres, and called TiVo and spoke with a CSR on 03/03/2014.

The first has been on yearly subscription for 4 years and is renewing in a few months, the second has been on yearly subscription for 3 years and had just renewed for the 4th a little over 30 days before my call to TiVo.

The short/quick response when I told them I was considering everything from cancelling to switching to a new Roamio, was we can sell you a Roamio at a reduced ($179) price and allow you to switch an existing plan over. That wasn't bad since they no longer offer the yearly plan, but not a great offer. The next was to offer $199 for Lifetime Service. Again, OK, but not special, I had received this offer via email recently.

I pointed out that if I switched to a new Roamio or cancelled, they would receive no more revenue from the Premieres and told them I had heard of offers of $99 Lifetime Service. After a bit more discussion on that topic, the rep asked if I could hold and checked a few things. With a supervisor, I would assume. When she returned, she told me that they could offer me the $99 Lifetime Service on both of my Premiere boxes. I said great, and then asked if they could do that on the one that had just recently renewed the yearly subscription (my second box). The trick here is that the 30 day "change your mind" window had expired by 3 days. After more extended hold, she returned and indicated that they could in fact do that.

Within a day, my second box showed Lifetime Service. The first box is up for renewal in May, and my TiVo account shows that it is scheduled for $99 Lifetime Service.

So.... Thanks to all the good discussion here in the TiVo Community Forum, I had the opportunity to get my facts and thoughts straight before making the call and ending with a successful outcome.

Thanks !!


----------



## unitron

d_bondi said:


> I have 2 TiVo Premieres, and called TiVo and spoke with a CSR on 03/03/2014.
> 
> The first has been on yearly subscription for 4 years and is renewing in a few months, the second has been on yearly subscription for 3 years and had just renewed for the 4th a little over 30 days before my call to TiVo.
> 
> The short/quick response when I told them I was considering everything from cancelling to switching to a new Roamio, was we can sell you a Roamio at a reduced ($179) price and allow you to switch an existing plan over. That wasn't bad since they no longer offer the yearly plan, but not a great offer. The next was to offer $199 for Lifetime Service. Again, OK, but not special, I had received this offer via email recently.
> 
> I pointed out that if I switched to a new Roamio or cancelled, they would receive no more revenue from the Premieres and told them I had heard of offers of $99 Lifetime Service. After a bit more discussion on that topic, the rep asked if I could hold and checked a few things. With a supervisor, I would assume. When she returned, she told me that they could offer me the $99 Lifetime Service on both of my Premiere boxes. I said great, and then asked if they could do that on the one that had just recently renewed the yearly subscription (my second box). The trick here is that the 30 day "change your mind" window had expired by 3 days. After more extended hold, she returned and indicated that they could in fact do that.
> 
> Within a day, my second box showed Lifetime Service. The first box is up for renewal in May, and my TiVo account shows that it is scheduled for $99 Lifetime Service.
> 
> So.... Thanks to all the good discussion here in the TiVo Community Forum, I had the opportunity to get my facts and thoughts straight before making the call and ending with a successful outcome.
> 
> Thanks !!


<montgomeryburns> "Excellent" </montgomeryburns>


----------



## tivoboy

Well, after spending 6-8 hours on the weekend to get a comcast cable card working on a new roamio, I managed to get everything sorted with Tivo.

I HATE the fact that I wasn't able to put the boxes in service for a couple months (due to work and the death of a friend) and therefore, wasn't able to pick the actual plans I wanted for the roamio and tivos. Annoying thing was, I ordered three minis back in jan. Originally, I ordered two (put them in my in-box online with my advisory panel coupon) and added lifetime to them. Then, went back and added a third mini. Well, or course it didn't get the lifetime added to it at the time or purchase. Not really sure how I missed that. So, it was billing at 5.99$ till this weekend when I managed to get everything in. Had to work to get a couple months billing credit back since what I wanted all along was lifetime on them.

The second thing was. I was taking one premier off an annual (which was going to bill in a few days) and I THOUGHT that since I had a premier with an annual on my account, I was going to be able to put the ANNUAL plan on the new Roamio that I bought from tivo. Well, no can do. ANNUAL plans are no longer available and even though it's a legacy MSD account and all, I can't put that plan on the new Roamio. They did essentially offer me the 99$ lifetime on the premier, which I took - even though I'm a TAD concerned with the FAN on that box, but I can probably repair that easily..

So, in the end. 8 hours on the phone with comcast and 20 minutes on the phone with tivo and it should be good or a while.

Now, need to figure out what to do with the lifetime premiers.? IF a box is listed as the MSD qualifying device, what happens if it is taken off the account?


----------



## d_bondi

While I was talking to the TiVo CSR (which eventually got me $99 lifetime on both Premieres), she offered to sell me a new Roamio and allow me to transfer my Annual Plan from one of my Premieres to that new Roamio.

So.... you might want to take another run at them.


----------



## truman861

I was offered $99.00 for the series 3 and $199.00 for the premiers but after buying a new roamio plus $399 and 3 minis at $100.00 each, i'm all tapped out. I dont have a money tree unfortunately and the funds just arent there.

Roamio Plus (Master)
3 Tivo Mini's (living room and kids rooms)
3 x Premiers (retired)
Tivo series 3 HD (retired)
Tivo series 2 with PLS (retired)
MoCA
CC: Cisco PK802
TA: Cisco STA1520
T.W. Brighthouse Tampabay - Moving to Verizon Fios


----------



## Mgalin

Bought a new Pro, Support offered me 99$ PLSR on my Elite that was active for 2.25 yrs.. Not bad... Family member going to be using it. Pays to be nice to them!


----------



## unitron

truman861 said:


> I was offered $99.00 for the series 3 and $199.00 for the premiers but after buying a new roamio plus $399 and 3 minis at $100.00 each, i'm all tapped out. I dont have a money tree unfortunately and the funds just arent there.
> 
> Roamio Plus (Master)
> 3 Tivo Mini's (living room and kids rooms)
> 3 x Premiers (retired)
> Tivo series 3 HD (retired)
> Tivo series 2 with PLS (retired)
> MoCA
> CC: Cisco PK802
> TA: Cisco STA1520
> T.W. Brighthouse Tampabay - Moving to Verizon Fios


If you take those lifetime offers, you can sell the machines for more than you spent on lifetime for them, especially the S3, since having lifetime increases their value above the current scrap/parts machine value.


----------



## Sockmonkey

I bought a Roamio and two minis.
I called to cancel my month-to-month Premier and S3. I was offered lifetime for $199 on the Premier and $99 on the S3.

The question is, will lifetime on either of these increase the resale value by more than I'm paying?


----------



## jrtroo

Yes, that is exactly what happened.


----------



## swak

I was having some issues with my Premiere so I ordered a Roamio with a $75 off coupon I found on slickdeals. I called yesterday to cancell my subscription on the Premiere (hoping I would be offered the $99 upgrade) I was offered to upgrade for $199. I said I'd return the roamio unless I could get the $99 offer. They said ok as long as I kept the roamio for at least 30 days (suppose so I couldn't return it). BTW, my premiere's age is 2 years and 2 months.


----------



## eboydog

Just go lifetime on one of my Premieres, it a surprise as it was a used unit that I bought cheap that hasn't been active for sometime and when I first called to subscribe it I was told that it had been inactive too long and wasn't eligible. I ended up adding it to my account on a monthly basis and I called today to cancel it since I was adding a Roamio.

Since I added the Roamio for a 1 yer commitment, they gave me lifetime on the Premiere for $99 minus the $14.99 that I had already payed since it was less than 30 days since I activated it!!

I'm tickeled pink, now I'm tempted to activate another permeire I have that was ineligible and see if I can get lifetime for it but I believe my loophole was that I was activating a Roamio and not that the previously ineligible Premeire had been added back into service.

Not sure what I'm going to do with it but I suspect I will sell it since I don't need another cable card fee or I guess I could cancel my Roamio before 30 days are up and add it back in few months after I activate another of my other inelgible Premeires I have laying around????


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## ftg

(First post.)

I want to thank the TiVoCommunity and give my experience on getting the $99 lifetime deal.

I got a letter in January from TiVo letting me know that my annual subscription was coming due and they were offering a lifetime discount. I misread the offer and when I checked online I found it really wasn't all that great.

I came here to see what other deals might be available and found out that a lot of lifetimed Series 3 and 4s were being sold cheap due to the $99 deal and other factors. So I went shopping on eBay and got a lifetimed Premiere for a _remarkably_ low price.

After that got transferred, etc., I called TiVo, did the "thinking about cancelling" bit on my HD (expanded to 1TB) and got the $99 lifetime deal. (I had bought the HD used, not sure if it was on my account for the 3 years.)

Sweet.

So I now have two lifetimed units and no more annual fees for a total cost about what others seem to be paying for a lifetimed Premiere.

Returned my remaining DTAs, retired my ReplayTV to the basement. (Where it joins a Series 2.) Now, all I have to do is convince Comcast to charge me the right fee and set up the cable card right. It might take a year or two for that to happen.

Thanks again, folks.


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## krtnheaz

So I upgraded to a Roamio, service transferred from my old Premiere that I've had for 3+ years. When I was on the phone ordering my Roamio the CSR told me that they would be offering me a $99 lifetime deal on my premiere:up:At this point I'm a happy guy. Fast forward 5 days and when I'm on the phone with Tivo completing the transfer to the Roamio and setting that up I ask about the lifetime deal.... :down:NO dice, I give them my case number and they look that up - apparently there weren't any notes written down by the first CSR and they weren't offering that deal right now. Little 'effen irritated by that one since it was something they brought up. Not sure if I have the patience to play CSR roulette.... Lesson learned is to make sure if it's ever mentioned that it is written down in their notes before hanging up...>AAARRRRGGGGHHHH !!!


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## eboydog

krtnheaz said:


> So I upgraded to a Roamio, service transferred from my old Premiere that I've had for 3+ years. When I was on the phone ordering my Roamio the CSR told me that they would be offering me a $99 lifetime deal on my premiere:up:At this point I'm a happy guy. Fast forward 5 days and when I'm on the phone with Tivo completing the transfer to the Roamio and setting that up I ask about the lifetime deal.... :down:NO dice, I give them my case number and they look that up - apparently there weren't any notes written down by the first CSR and they weren't offering that deal right now. Little 'effen irritated by that one since it was something they brought up. Not sure if I have the patience to play CSR roulette.... Lesson learned is to make sure if it's ever mentioned that it is written down in their notes before hanging up...>AAARRRRGGGGHHHH !!!


If I was you, I would call back go though the close account phone tree option and threaten to cancel the Roamio, as long as it been less than 30 days since you added the Roamio, you will have bargaining power. If I can buy a used Premiere on eBay, have it a active for less than 30 days and then get lifetime for $99, you should be able to get lifetime for $99 for yours!

Call back, don't give up on that one!


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## dnorth12

krtnheaz said:


> So I upgraded to a Roamio, service transferred from my old Premiere that I've had for 3+ years. When I was on the phone ordering my Roamio the CSR told me that they would be offering me a $99 lifetime deal on my premiere:up:At this point I'm a happy guy. Fast forward 5 days and when I'm on the phone with Tivo completing the transfer to the Roamio and setting that up I ask about the lifetime deal.... :down:NO dice, I give them my case number and they look that up - apparently there weren't any notes written down by the first CSR and they weren't offering that deal right now. Little 'effen irritated by that one since it was something they brought up. Not sure if I have the patience to play CSR roulette.... Lesson learned is to make sure if it's ever mentioned that it is written down in their notes before hanging up...>AAARRRRGGGGHHHH !!!


I had an issue about being promised a lifetime a few months ago by a csr. In a later conversation with another csr I wanted to take advantage of the offer and was told that it didn't exist. Gave them my case number and I believe a manager listened to a recording of the conversation and we split the difference in cost.


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## mcf57

I had a Series 3 that I got the $99 lifetime on it. Less than 2 months later, it stopped working (reboot loop). I tried EVERYTHING to get it going; new hard drive, replaced caps, swapped the power supply with another identical S3 that was fully working. Nothing worked. I thought was out of luck. 

I finally got around to calling TiVo about 7 months later. I went through the tech dept. and went through some procedures to try and get it going. As I figured, nothing worked. Finally, they decided to just offer me a 500GB 2-tuner (refurb) premiere for $79. They also said since lifetime had been on the S3 unit for less than a year, they could transfer the lifetime for free to the new Premiere. 

Seeing as I heard about CSR stories here and how you sometimes have to play roulette with them to get what you want, I JUMPED on this offer right away & as I was talking to the guy. I had to give a $99 deposit, but this was fully refunded when I sent them the non-working S3 unit. The new 2-tuner Premiere arrived quickly, has lifetime on it & is working great. I got my credit card refunded $99 shortly after sending the S3 back and all is good. It cost me about $15 to ship it back, but I could still live with this too. 

I have a 4-tuner premiere that is coming up on its annual renewal here and I am thinking of either cancelling it or trying to get the $99 offer for it. Not sure they will do it for a 4-tuner Premiere, but we'll see & worth a shot. I may actually get offered a $199 lifetime so may take that as well. I guess if you are offered a good deal, GO FOR IT right away as it might not be offered again.


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## swak

Agree with getting it in your notes. I had the same situation and when I called yesterday the csr saw the offer given to me about 3 weeks prior and i got $99 lifetime on my less than 3 year old premiere.


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## squint

Another reason to jump on the deal right away is that the lifetime plan goes into effect when your current monthly billing cycle ends. Until then, it's only pending and you can cancel it online anytime before then.

I just acquired a lifetime Premiere. The one I have now hits the 3-year mark in September so hopefully, I can get it lifetimed for $99.


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## tamathat

Called today to try for $99 lifetime on a used Premier box I picked up on Craigslist. 

Bought the box and activated it on a month-to-month for my brother to try with over the air. After I saw the posts on here I called to try and get the $99 lifetime. CSR stated she could only do $199 since the box was 2 yrs 8 mos. I told her I would like to cancel under the 30 day trial unless she could honor the $99 lifetime. She placed me on a brief hold, came back and told me that she could do it.

Happy CSR roulette folks


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## nooneuknow

That 30-day satisfaction guarantee on TiVo service sure it a big stick, to talk softly with. 

It almost seems like it's worth subbing any TiVo, just to have that 30-day leverage... I wonder how much they factor the thought of losing a monthly sub with a commitment period, versus a lifetime sub... Even though a LT sub is more money up-front, TiVo makes more off those who stay monthly, once they hit the threshold where LTS would begin to equal savings...

I'm not advocating immoral behavior, even though I sure sound like I am...


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## buscuitboy

nooneuknow said:


> That 30-day satisfaction guarantee on TiVo service sure it a big stick, to talk softly with.


 I basically did this about a year ago to get $99 lifetime on a Series 3 HD unit. Signed up, but then called about 25 days into it and said I changed my mind and it might be too much after all. They offered me the $99 deal and I took it (3 times now). I have since sold the Series 3s, but I guess this tactic can now be used with Premieres as well.


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## billbillw

I called in to cancel my oldest Premiere and was able to snag another $99 Lifetime sub. I've had it just over 2 years. He initially offered $199, but I said I would only consider it for $99. A few minutes on hold and it was approved. Not very difficult really. 

Now I think I am going to replace my Premiere 4 with the lifetime unit and sell the Premiere 4 since I never bothered to get a Mini. 

I'm using an HTPC w a 3-tuner HDHomerun now as well, so I don't really need the extra tuners in the Premiere 4. Honestly, the Premiere 4 is a pain anyway. It is noticeably slower than the 2-tuner Premieres. Now I guess I need to call in tomorrow and cancel service on the 4 tuner box.


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## cykotix

My Premieres are just over 2yrs old. I said I want $99 lifetime on each. He said he couldn't do that because they weren't 3yrs old yet. I then asked him what the magic word was to get this done. Was it to threaten to cancel? I could tell he was thrown by how blunt I was and replied he didn't know. I read between the lines and said ok, then I'm threatening to cancel. He said ok, asked me to hold for a moment, came back and said he was able to get it approved on both. I was on the phone for maybe 10mins.


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## jlin

i called to re-activated my old 2 years old Premier and asked about the $99 deal. The rep said "let me see if the promo code works' on your unit. In less than 30 seconds, I got myself a $99 Lifetime! I didnt' even have to threaten to cancel!

However, it couldn't be done on a newer Premier (with the 500gb hard drive). 

I believe it may also help that I paid $399 for my Roamino Lifetime and it was the end of May (for end of month better number?)


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## Chris Gerhard

jlin said:


> i called to re-activated my old 2 years old Premier and asked about the $99 deal. The rep said "let me see if the promo code works' on your unit. In less than 30 seconds, I got myself a $99 Lifetime! I didnt' even have to threaten to cancel!
> 
> However, it couldn't be done on a newer Premier (with the 500gb hard drive).
> 
> I believe it may also help that I paid $399 for my Roamino Lifetime and it was the end of May (for end of month better number?)


I don't know what makes a Premiere qualify for the $99 lifetime offer but I don't think it had anything to do with your Roamio. It appears that each individual Premiere is analyzed to see if it has earned enough revenue and if it has, it will qualify. In other words, a Premiere subscribed for a year, put in the closet, taken out two years later won't quality. One that was subscribed for three years would. Just a guess since I have no inside knowledge but the goal of having each specific box make a profit might be the key.


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## advocate2

I just received the $99 deal today when I called to cancel. They said that the unit had been in service for three and a half years and that qualified it. I think the key is how long the particular unit has been in service. With all the premieres manufactured in 2010, their time is ready. You can pick up XL's for around $70, throw in a 2t drive and get lifetime for about $250. Not bad if you can live with two tuners.


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## Radiomanpj

I just called and was denied. Mfg date 2-3-11 model 746.

CSR said that they had no promotion available on that unit.

Darn. Now is when I could afford that deal.
Guess I will have to cancel when fall comes and my income goes down


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## jlin

How many months were paid on that unit?

Perhaps you can try at the end of this month to see if they want to make their monthly quota.


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## CrispyCritter

jlin said:


> Perhaps you can try at the end of this month to see if they want to make their monthly quota.


I've never seen any sign of monthly quotas (or any reason for it). Quarterly targets, on the other hand, have often had an effect on sales and may be good times to buy. End of July is the next quarter end.


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## unitron

CrispyCritter said:


> I've never seen any sign of monthly quotas (or any reason for it). Quarterly targets, on the other hand, have often had an effect on sales and may be good times to buy. End of July is the next quarter end.


Aren't there 4 quarters in a year, each one consisting of 3 months, and wouldn't March have been the end of the previous one and wouldn't the current one be ending at the end of this month, June, with the next one starting in July?

Or does TiVo's fiscal year run February through January?


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## CrispyCritter

unitron said:


> Aren't there 4 quarters in a year, each one consisting of 3 months, and wouldn't March have been the end of the previous one and wouldn't the current one be ending at the end of this month, June, with the next one starting in July?
> 
> Or does TiVo's fiscal year run February through January?


February through January - makes holiday season accounting a bit easier.


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## das335

I just failed to get the $99 offer on a used TiVO Premiere I bought. The rep first said it looked like it qualified but then checked with a supervisor and I was told "No'".

I called in to the main TiVo customer support number. Any advice on getting this offer from those that succeeded ?

Has anyone used the "chat" option to do this ? I already have a new Roamio I bought earlier this year and a TiVo HD, bought with lifetime subscriptions.

I was hoping that the Roamio purchase might help but it seemed to be simply based on the prior usage of the Premiere.

I will probably try back again in a few days. I was also thinking of taking a monthly rate to try the box but cancelling before the 30 day trial and see if I get any kind of deal.


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## jrtroo

try try try again.


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## advocate2

Check the back of your Tivo. If it is more than three years old you have a shot. 

I just received the 99 offer on three Tivos in less than a 30 day period. Make sure to say you want to cancel.


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## StEvEY5036

Just was denied on my XL4. Thing was on my last nerve, so slow and really not worth the aggravation any more. Bought a Roamio Plus and a Mini to go along with it, paid the $149 for lifetime for the Mini and asked if they could offer me anything for the XL4 - Was told $399 was the best for lifetime, when I asked for $99 it was a swift no. Off to eBay it goes.


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## dcline414

StEvEY5036 said:


> Just was denied on my XL4. Thing was on my last nerve, so slow and really not worth the aggravation any more. Bought a Roamio Plus and a Mini to go along with it, paid the $149 for lifetime for the Mini and asked if they could offer me anything for the XL4 - Was told $399 was the best for lifetime, when I asked for $99 it was a swift no. Off to eBay it goes.


How old is the unit they denied the deal on? I signed a 12 month commitment last year to drop the monthly price from $20 to $15, and that one year term ends in 5 weeks.

We purchased and activated our premiere in January 2012, so will have paid $580 in monthly fees for 32 continuous months of service when the contract is up next month. Just wondering if we have a shot at the $99 lifetime deal.


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## dnorth12

StEvEY5036 said:


> Just was denied on my XL4. Thing was on my last nerve, so slow and really not worth the aggravation any more. Bought a Roamio Plus and a Mini to go along with it, paid the $149 for lifetime for the Mini and asked if they could offer me anything for the XL4 - Was told $399 was the best for lifetime, when I asked for $99 it was a swift no. Off to eBay it goes.


I just received an email from TiVo that there is a Premier update coming in the next few weeks that promises zippier menu functionality. It may not effect your decision, but I just wanted to mention it in case it might have some bearing and you haven't seen the email.


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## eboydog

StEvEY5036 said:


> Just was denied on my XL4. Thing was on my last nerve, so slow and really not worth the aggravation any more. Bought a Roamio Plus and a Mini to go along with it, paid the $149 for lifetime for the Mini and asked if they could offer me anything for the XL4 - Was told $399 was the best for lifetime, when I asked for $99 it was a swift no. Off to eBay it goes.


Interesting, I wonder if they made a business plan change as the same happpened to me on my last premiere I had as I called today to cancel and they said thank you, good bye. After they upgraded my last two for $99 I was expecting nothing less, they told me the same too that $399 was the cost for lifetime.

I'm bummed out.....


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## nooneuknow

eboydog said:


> Interesting, I wonder if they made a business plan change as the same happpened to me on my last premiere I had as I called today to cancel and they said thank you, good bye. After they upgraded my last two for $99 I was expecting nothing less, they told me the same too that $399 was the cost for lifetime.
> 
> I'm bummed out.....


I wonder if they have been forced to make up for lost revenue caused by those selling discount codes, by discontinuing the $99 & $199 lifetime offers...

Sorry to hear it's not working out for folks right now.

Best case scenario is it's a temporary "no discounted lifetime" for subscription retention until whatever was wrong with the billing/activation system is fixed. Second best case is it is just one of the periods they sometimes don't offer it, and it will return again.

Worst case scenario is TiVo is actually knowingly letting the codes be sold and used, in order to reduce inventory, as part of a exit strategy from retail. It's hard to say for sure. Sometimes those inside TiVo don't know what corporate is up to.


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## Chris Gerhard

nooneuknow said:


> I wonder if they have been forced to make up for lost revenue caused by those selling discount codes, by discontinuing the $99 & $199 lifetime offers...
> 
> Sorry to hear it's not working out for folks right now.
> 
> Best case scenario is it's a temporary "no discounted lifetime" for subscription retention until whatever was wrong with the billing/activation system is fixed. Second best case is it is just one of the periods they sometimes don't offer it, and it will return again.
> 
> Worst case scenario is TiVo is actually knowingly letting the codes be sold and used, in order to reduce inventory, as part of a exit strategy from retail. It's hard to say for sure. Sometimes those inside TiVo don't know what corporate is up to.


I don't know the reason $99 lifetime service subscriptions are sold or not sold but I am pretty sure this isn't the reason for no sales now, assuming there are no $99 lifetime subscriptions being sold now. A few reports is far from conclusive to me, I was denied several times over the years when others were successful and the same could be true now, some could be successful now while others are not. It is hard to know much about a special offer that isn't in writing for customers to understand the terms.

I hope TiVo isn't getting out of the hardware business but I have seen about as much hard evidence regarding that rumor as I have this rumor, nothing.


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## nooneuknow

Chris Gerhard said:


> I don't know the reason $99 lifetime service subscriptions are sold or not sold but I am pretty sure this isn't the reason for no sales now, assuming there are no $99 lifetime subscriptions being sold now. A few reports is far from conclusive to me, I was denied several times over the years when others were successful and the same could be true now, some could be successful now while others are not. It is hard to know much about a special offer that isn't in writing for customers to understand the terms.
> 
> I hope TiVo isn't getting out of the hardware business but I have seen about as much hard evidence regarding that rumor as I have this rumor, nothing.


The $99 or $199 LTS refusals have been reported by three people, and that was just yesterday. Not all reports will always wind up in a single thread for the subject, or even any one of them. They often get placed in threads where people are discussing their new Roamio purchase, and the subject of what happened when they went to cancel the old one just comes up there.

One person's alleged "story" over a bought discount code set off a fury of people claiming the end of the codes, and the wording of that alleged incident was suspect to me right away. Just a note, not an argument.

Plenty of quotes from TiVo execs, written accounts of interviews, reports by reputable blogs and news outlets, and some information that those with NDAs can't legally disclose or discuss, exist in enough quantity and quality to have me convinced, and I'm not alone.

For some, the only "hard evidence" adequate enough for them will be the day it happens (after they get past the denial of it happening).

I wouldn't post about it, if I had any doubts. It's actually old news to me. Instead of focusing on "if" anymore, I'm watching for signs of "when".

I can understand not wanting to believe it, as well as not liking people posting about it. TiVo has made no attempts to dispute the matter.

Signs also point to TiVo wanting out of the hardware market, and to focus on cloud DVR services, and being a software company. If TiVo exists the hardware market, exactly how will they have a retail DVR to offer?


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## jrtroo

nooneuknow said:


> Signs also point to TiVo wanting out of the hardware market, and to focus on cloud DVR services, and being a software company. If TiVo exists the hardware market, exactly how will they have a retail DVR to offer?


I don't have time to search right now, but Tivo is getting out of the hardware manufacturing, and in a recent interview stressed that they are staying in the retail market. They seem to get looking to install their software in a box someone else builds, which they have been suggesting for years.


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## aryndub

A co-worker gave me his old Tivo Premiere for use as he no longer needed it. He was offered the $99 lifetime, but since he had no need for it, he said no thanks... they told him that if he gave it to a family member/friend they would honor the $99 deal. A few weeks later he tells me about it and I take him up on taking the Tivo off his hands, after trying to activate it with $99 lifetime, they say that he was indeed offered the deal and he turned it down and it was no longer available to anyone, not even him.

How is this possible? I thought it was tied to the box, not the user? My co-worker subscribed monthly for at minimum 3 years as he's had the box since they were first released.

Anything I can try? I'm afraid they noted my account should I try and call in again.


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## eboydog

aryndub said:


> A co-worker gave me his old Tivo Premiere for use as he no longer needed it. He was offered the $99 lifetime, but since he had no need for it, he said no thanks... they told him that if he gave it to a family member/friend they would honor the $99 deal. A few weeks later he tells me about it and I take him up on taking the Tivo off his hands, after trying to activate it with $99 lifetime, they say that he was indeed offered the deal and he turned it down and it was no longer available to anyone, not even him.
> 
> How is this possible? I thought it was tied to the box, not the user? My co-worker subscribed monthly for at minimum 3 years as he's had the box since they were first released.
> 
> Anything I can try? I'm afraid they noted my account should I try and call in again.


Activate it on a monthly basis and pay the first month fee, before the first 30 days are up call TiVo and request it to be canceled.

That has worked for me on several cases with exception to this week, if the box is not subscribed they won't offer the deal but if it's subscribed, somehow it makes a difference and they apply that first month's fee towards the $99 lifetime fee.


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## advocate2

eboydog said:


> Activate it on a monthly basis and pay the first month fee, before the first 30 days are up call TiVo and request it to be canceled.
> 
> That has worked for me on several cases with exception to this week, if the box is not subscribed they won't offer the deal but if it's subscribed, somehow it makes a difference and they apply that first month's fee towards the $99 lifetime fee.


+1. I have received the $99 offer on three Premiere units in the last 60 days. Make sure you activate with the price that allows you to cancel at any time. In each case I cancelled a few days prior to the end of the first period and the first month price was credited to the $99.


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## eboydog

advocate2 said:


> +1. I have received the $99 offer on three Premiere units in the last 60 days. Make sure you activate with the price that allows you to cancel at any time. In each case I cancelled a few days prior to the end of the first period and the first month price was credited to the $99.


That may have been the issue with the last one that I had denied. When I activated it, I had no option for the more expensive month to month with no commitment. I suspect the box was a upgrade prior for its prior owner were TiVo transferred old service to a new Roamio the same as my old HD TiVo that was upgraded to a Roamio were the new Roamio shows it was activated in 2007 and my old TiVo HD has no history as if was never subscribed.

I might try calling TiVo back and ask explicitly for the $99 lifetime, after the summer update, it might actually be useful again.


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## nooneuknow

advocate2 said:


> +1. I have received the $99 offer on three Premiere units in the last 60 days. Make sure you activate with the price that allows you to cancel at any time. In each case I cancelled a few days prior to the end of the first period and the first month price was credited to the $99.


This is consistent with my experiences as well.

Even if a box has 3+ years (or 5+ years) of continuous active service, but that service is *transferred* to another box, TiVo wipes all history of that original box/TSN ever even having a sub from the records associated with that TSN. It will show in their system as if it never had a sub. It will even disappear from the subscriber's list of boxes, unlike how boxes that simply have had their service discontinued, remain listed (as long as the status is "in good standing" at the time the subscription ends).

Even in the rare event of TiVo allowing a discounted transfer of lifetime service, the same thing happens to the box/TSN, that originally had it.

People often transfer service, rather than cancel and then start new service (even if it saves no money, monthly), in order to not be locked into a new commitment period on the next box/TSN.

The "behind the scenes" break some people get when buying a used TiVo that had prior service, is that the seller may have left TiVo, or not transferred service to another box/TSN. This is how we wind up hearing about people buying a used TiVo, and being offered the discounted service. Given the enormous decline in subs that went from something like 5 million active subs, to just over a half million, and the period in which that decline took place, that would be a logical explanation for non-lifetime boxes which are considered eligible (the owners left TiVo, and simply cancelled service).

Even if you get a used box that doesn't qualify, and have no choice but a commitment period, you still have the money-back satisfaction guarantee period to cancel, without penalties, and also receive all your money back paid for service.

There must be ways for buyers to find out if a used non-lifetime box/TSN is still in the records as having a cancelled (but not transferred sub) in good standing, record. I guess asking the seller the details of how the box became without subscription, as long as they tell the truth, is a start.

A word of caution: TiVo is free to offer and discontinue any discount (public, or behind the scenes) at any time, for any reason. These lifetime offers are always being ended, and then brought back again. Don't count on it coming back again, as there may come a time that it won't. If you get an offer from TiVo, and don't/can't take it at that time, don't be foolish enough to take the CSR's word that the offer will stand, for even a day. Don't buy the "we'll put it in our records that the offer will still be good" line, sometimes given. It will not stand if the period of the offer ends, or it was offered outside the internal (secret) requirements for eligibility.

One thing that bothers me about the discounted lifetime threads are how people state the age of the box, which is irrelevant (on its own). I am bothered by advice, questions, and answers that only cover the age of the box. The same goes for posts asking about the date of manufacture, and people answering based on that alone. It may be a starting point to see if the box/TSN is old enough to even have have had 2 or 3 years worth of service, but still depends on how long between manufacture and having service for the first time. You could buy box that is 5+ years old, that never had service, or only had it for a month. For this reason, the age of the box is utterly unreliable, unless it is too new to have had service for long enough.

It still seems that the most common parameters are still the "norm" for discounted lifetime offers, when available: 2 years of continuous monthly service gets $199 DLTS price, 3 years of continuous monthly service gets $99 DTLS price. As I've already stated, the requirements can change, the unadvertised discounts are not always available, and different CSRs will sometimes give an offer they should not have given (or make promises they can't keep).

As always, best chances of getting the deals are when the service is active, and you are calling to cancel. This still requires you calling when they are offering these deals, and sometimes still depends on the luck of the draw.


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## Futureinsights

I actually got the 199 deal on a replacement box, for a nearly year old 2 tuner no longer good due to signal strength issues. But I called end of December 2013. The best deals are in the holidays. Went from two tuner premiere to 4 tuner with moca. Had already purchased mini with lifetime.


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## eboydog

nooneuknow said:


> This is consistent with my experiences as well.
> 
> Even if a box has 3+ years (or 5+ years) of continuous active service, but that service is *transferred* to another box, TiVo wipes all history of that original box/TSN ever even having a sub from the records associated with that TSN. It will show in their system as if it never had a sub. It will even disappear from the subscriber's list of boxes, unlike how boxes that simply have had their service discontinued, remain listed (as long as the status is "in good standing" at the time the subscription ends).
> 
> Even in the rare event of TiVo allowing a discounted transfer of lifetime service, the same thing happens to the box/TSN, that originally had it.
> 
> People often transfer service, rather than cancel and then start new service (even if it saves no money, monthly), in order to not be locked into a new commitment period on the next box/TSN.
> 
> The "behind the scenes" break some people get when buying a used TiVo that had prior service, is that the seller may have left TiVo, or not transferred service to another box/TSN. This is how we wind up hearing about people buying a used TiVo, and being offered the discounted service. Given the enormous decline in subs that went from something like 5 million active subs, to just over a half million, and the period in which that decline took place, that would be a logical explanation for non-lifetime boxes which are considered eligible (the owners left TiVo, and simply cancelled service).
> 
> Even if you get a used box that doesn't qualify, and have no choice but a commitment period, you still have the money-back satisfaction guarantee period to cancel, without penalties, and also receive all your money back paid for service.
> 
> There must be ways for buyers to find out if a used non-lifetime box/TSN is still in the records as having a cancelled (but not transferred sub) in good standing, record. I guess asking the seller the details of how the box became without subscription, as long as they tell the truth, is a start.
> 
> A word of caution: TiVo is free to offer and discontinue any discount (public, or behind the scenes) at any time, for any reason. These lifetime offers are always being ended, and then brought back again. Don't count on it coming back again, as there may come a time that it won't. If you get an offer from TiVo, and don't/can't take it at that time, don't be foolish enough to take the CSR's word that the offer will stand, for even a day. Don't buy the "we'll put it in our records that the offer will still be good" line, sometimes given. It will not stand if the period of the offer ends, or it was offered outside the internal (secret) requirements for eligibility.
> 
> One thing that bothers me about the discounted lifetime threads are how people state the age of the box, which is irrelevant (on its own). I am bothered by advice, questions, and answers that only cover the age of the box. The same goes for posts asking about the date of manufacture, and people answering based on that alone. It may be a starting point to see if the box/TSN is old enough to even have have had 2 or 3 years worth of service, but still depends on how long between manufacture and having service for the first time. You could buy box that is 5+ years old, that never had service, or only had it for a month. For this reason, the age of the box is utterly unreliable, unless it is too new to have had service for long enough.
> 
> It still seems that the most common parameters are still the "norm" for discounted lifetime offers, when available: 2 years of continuous monthly service gets $199 DLTS price, 3 years of continuous monthly service gets $99 DTLS price. As I've already stated, the requirements can change, the unadvertised discounts are not always available, and different CSRs will sometimes give an offer they should not have given (or make promises they can't keep).
> 
> As always, best chances of getting the deals are when the service is active, and you are calling to cancel. This still requires you calling when they are offering these deals, and sometimes still depends on the luck of the draw.


Yes, TiVo csr told me the TiVo age doesn't matter but rather how long it's been subscribed, also they said there was a limit that if the box had been deactive too long then it not eligible but that is fixed by subscribing it monthly and calling to cancel before it's first 30 days are up. I found a premiere that was over 3 years old but never activated, couldn't do anything to it other than normal subscriptions .


----------



## mobouser

Tried to get the 99 dollar special on my 2 tuner under the 30day guarantee. Talked to some guy who spoke using broken English. He wanted to sell me a Romano only did not care about the Premier.


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## nooneuknow

eboydog said:


> Yes, TiVo csr told me the TiVo age doesn't matter but rather how long it's been subscribed, also they said there was a limit that if the box had been deactive too long then it not eligible but that is fixed by subscribing it monthly and calling to cancel before it's first 30 days are up. I found a premiere that was over 3 years old but never activated, couldn't do anything to it other than normal subscriptions .


Even if the only option was monthly with 1yr commitment, you have 30 days to call back and cancel, without penalty, and with refund of what you paid (is how I understand it). I've seen speculation about the deals being offered at times when TiVo wants to add subs, or not lose them (as in there might be a pattern one could try to pick up on).

I think there's a possibility that if you have had service in the past on that unit's TSN on your account, that you would have used-up the 30-day period. I'm curious if this has been verified. I doubt TiVo would let you do it more than once under the same account and the same TSN.

It would not surprise me at all if the end of such "retention" deals is near, even with purchase and sub of a new Roamio. Now that TiVo has their future focused on MSO-partnerships, it's more impressive to potential new partners if they add more people running the Roamio hardware.

If I was a MSO looking at a TiVo partnership, I'd be more impressed by Roamio converts, than old-platform retention deals.

That does bring up something I somehow missed in my prior post... Sometimes the deals are only offered with the criteria I stated, plus a recent addition of a newer model to the account. There have been many deal periods like that, IIRC.


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## shwru980r

I just got the $99 lifetime on a 2 tuner premiere given to me by a coworker. The coworker had used the premiere for 3 years paying monthly. I activated the premiere and called with 4 days left on the 30 day cancellation period. I told the Tivo representative I was cancelling and wanted the $99 lifetime service on the premiere. The representative insisted that was not possible and that I was already getting a discount on the monthly service. After he failed to convince me to keep the monthly service, I was put on hold. The representative returned and offered me the $99 lifetime service.


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## squint

I just upgraded my last monthly Premiere to lifetime for $99. It'd been subscribed since Sept. 2011 and for awhile I wasn't even getting the MSD because I didn't select it from the drop-down menu on tivo.com.

It was a quick and smooth process. I just said I had one last monthly TiVo that I wanted to convert to lifetime. I didn't have to threaten to cancel but I have several lifetime TiVos not currently in use so had they offered $199 lifetime I would have canceled and just setup one of those lifetime TiVos.


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## advocate2

Having purchased several Premiers in the hope of converting to lifetime, and leaving them boxed in my garage because of non eligibility, I never purchase a Tivo without getting the Tivo service number, going to the Tivo website and trying the activation procedure. If I get the message allowing month to month service at $14.99, it's ok to buy. Any other message and I pass. Sellers often do not know the implications of a transferred subscription to a new box. 

I had an Ebay seller insist that his box already had lifetime on a new, never opened Premier XL. I did not get the proper message, called Tivo and found out that someone was paying month to month service on this box. Since the seller did not know how to transfer service, I smelled a rat and passed.


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## dcline414

I think we have gotten to the point that we really do need more than two tuners (yes, even with just OTA) and want to upgrade our Premiere to a Roamio OTA.

My understanding is that our Premiere has little to no resale value unless the box is sold with lifetime service, but it appears a 3-year-old 2-tuner 320gb Premiere in good condition with lifetime service should sell for $250+ on eBay. So if we pay $99 (or even $199) for lifetime service, we should break even on an upgrade to the Roamio OTA, and continue paying the same $15 per month for service on better hardware.

We were new Tivo customers when we got the Premiere 33 months ago, and have now paid a total of $590 for monthly service on this unit:

Tivo Account History

A few newbie questions for any of you Tivo gurus that might be willing to share their wisdom:

Is this purely a targeted customer retention offer or are there notes on all accounts indicating what incentives (if any) they qualify for? We are happy with Tivo and have no plans to cancel, so I would prefer not to make empty cancellation threats or feign outrage and demand a supervisor in order to find out about getting lifetime service.

Is this something that any Tivo customer service rep would know about and be able to check if we qualify? If the rep doesn't offer the $99 lifetime service deal or only offers it at $199, is there any point in calling back and asking a different rep, or will they all say the same thing?

If we are able to get lifetime service on the Premiere, what is the best way to activate a new Roamio and remove/transfer our current box? Do we need to overlap service and pay $15 for each box for a month in order to start using the new Roamio before selling our current Premiere?

Should I sell the Premiere with the 1TB drive we installed or reinstall the original 320gb drive and keep the larger drive to use with the new box?

Thanks in advance for your help everyone!


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## SVTarHeel

advocate2 said:


> Having purchased several Premiers in the hope of converting to lifetime, and leaving them boxed in my garage because of non eligibility, I never purchase a Tivo without getting the Tivo service number, going to the Tivo website and trying the activation procedure. If I get the message allowing month to month service at $14.99, it's ok to buy. Any other message and I pass.


Is this method available for someone without a TiVo account? I have a craigslist-bought 320GB Premiere with 3+ years of monthly service and would like to avoid any pitfalls I can in determining the possibility of $99 lifetime for it. (The full story is 2 pages here.)


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## timatkn

dcline414 said:


> Tivo Account History
> 
> A few newbie questions for any of you Tivo gurus that might be willing to share their wisdom:
> 
> Is this purely a targeted customer retention offer or are there notes on all accounts indicating what incentives (if any) they qualify for? We are happy with Tivo and have no plans to cancel, so I would prefer not to make empty cancellation threats or feign outrage and demand a supervisor in order to find out about getting lifetime service.
> 
> Is this something that any Tivo customer service rep would know about and be able to check if we qualify? If the rep doesn't offer the $99 lifetime service deal or only offers it at $199, is there any point in calling back and asking a different rep, or will they all say the same thing?
> 
> If we are able to get lifetime service on the Premiere, what is the best way to activate a new Roamio and remove/transfer our current box? Do we need to overlap service and pay $15 for each box for a month in order to start using the new Roamio before selling our current Premiere?
> 
> Should I sell the Premiere with the 1TB drive we installed or reinstall the original 320gb drive and keep the larger drive to use with the new box?
> 
> Thanks in advance for your help everyone!


As far as getting the Lifetime for $99 on the premiere just call and ask. I did that yesterday, no threats just asked if I qualified. I don't know what the qualifications are exactly but she look dingo my account and offered me the deal. When you call go to the cancellation line but you don't need to threaten them to cancel if you don't feel up to it--just ask.

T


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## dcline414

timatkn said:


> As far as getting the Lifetime for $99 on the premiere just call and ask. I did that yesterday, no threats just asked if I qualified. I don't know what the qualifications are exactly but she look dingo my account and offered me the deal. When you call go to the cancellation line but you don't need to threaten them to cancel if you don't feel up to it--just ask.
> 
> T


Thanks.

I tried asking a live chat support rep today and he said they aren't allowed to discuss targeted offers unless you call in and speak to someone directly. I asked if he could save me the call if he knew I wouldn't qualify after 33 months of service and he responded with a vague assurance that they offer all sorts of special deals for long term customers.


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## shwru980r

It's been mentioned before that activating the premiere with monthly service and then cancelling near the end of the 30 days gives you more leverage when negotiating the $99 lifetime deal. It worked for me.


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## timatkn

dcline414 said:


> Thanks.
> 
> I tried asking a live chat support rep today and he said they aren't allowed to discuss targeted offers unless you call in and speak to someone directly. I asked if he could save me the call if he knew I wouldn't qualify after 33 months of service and he responded with a vague assurance that they offer all sorts of special deals for long term customers.


Sorry wasn't following the thread. I tried through chat first as well, same response as you. Have to call to find out.

T


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## lujan

I called twice and both times they told me that since I didn't buy my TiVo from TiVo, they can only charge the $399.00. I was told that it is TiVo policy. I bought my Premiere from Amazon. Why do they allow other vendors to sell them if they're going to penalize the customer when they want to get lifetime service?


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## dcline414

lujan said:


> I called twice and both times they told me that since I didn't buy my TiVo from TiVo, they can only charge the $399.00.


Oh wow, can't believe this detail hasn't been mentioned before if it's really Tivo policy... ours came from Costco, so I guess we're SOL too.


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## MeInDallas

lujan said:


> I called twice and both times they told me that since I didn't buy my TiVo from TiVo, they can only charge the $399.00. I was told that it is TiVo policy. I bought my Premiere from Amazon. Why do they allow other vendors to sell them if they're going to penalize the customer when they want to get lifetime service?


This isnt true. You need to play customer service roulette and talk to some different people. The boxes I got the $99 lifetime on I bought from Yogi Computers on Ebay. He sells on Amazon too.


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## lujan

MeInDallas said:


> This isnt true. You need to play customer service roulette and talk to some different people. The boxes I got the $99 lifetime on I bought from Yogi Computers on Ebay. He sells on Amazon too.


Well I guess it's just true for me. This is my situation and maybe it differs a lot from yours and that's why you were able to get it? I already have 2 premieres with lifetime service. The third premiere was purchased from Amazon and that's the one that they won't give me lifetime on for $99.00. It is $399.00 and this time I spoke with one of the supervisors at TiVo.


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## MeInDallas

I still think you should try some other reps. It's never made any sense to me how one rep can say no to a $99 lifetime, and then in an hour or the next day another rep can give it to you.

I had a guy from Tivo argue with me one time saying this website was all B.S. and dont pay any attention to what I read here, and he said he was a supervisor. Then I started reading off the names of the support staff that posted here and his response was "oh . . ." Tivo has always been like that though with me when I had to deal with them. I could go on and on about it.

I wouldnt give up if I were you  Wait a week and try again.


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## randywalters

lujan said:


> I called twice and both times they told me that since I didn't buy my TiVo from TiVo, they can only charge the $399.00. I was told that it is TiVo policy. I bought my Premiere from Amazon. Why do they allow other vendors to sell them if they're going to penalize the customer when they want to get lifetime service?


They're not penalizing anybody, their default price for Lifetime is $399 for existing Tivo customers, and it's $499 for new customers. So existing customers get an automatic $100 discount regardless of who they bought the Tivo from (be it new or used).

The people here that are getting the $99 deal are getting something very special and rare. Keep calling back until you get a rep willing to give you that deal.


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## SVTarHeel

I called in this past week, attempting to get $99 lifetime on the 320GB Premiere I got from craigslist. The rep said that, since the previous owner closed her account, all history of this unit was wiped away, so the previous 3+ years of monthly service don't matter at all. He told me that she was never eligible for $99 like she told me, just $199 (I guess it's possible she got the numbers confused). He also said that he'd been there for years and had seen it all and that there was NO WAY to get $99 lifetime on this unit since it wasn't old enough - that offer was mainly for series 3s.

At this point, I'm leaning toward trying to downgrade my DirecTV package - or see if I can get some discounts - and cutting my losses with my TiVo experiment. One last gasp may be that I saw where someone mentioned that the end-of-quarter time frame may yield better offers. My month-long trial ends Nov 6th, so I'll probably call back near the end of this month to see if cancelling during my initial 30-days of service yields anything.


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## JayBird

Bottom line question... I have a NEW Premiere XL4 I ordered from Amazon (actually from Weaknees, fulfilled by Amazon) which I haven't activated yet (I'm waiting for completion of an equipment closet before it will get installed and hooked up). As a long time TiVo customer (assuming that carries any weight) who is responsible for the purchase of around 15 TiVos throughout my family over the years, is there any deal available other than the $399 for MSD I can get for my new Premiere?


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## Chris Gerhard

JayBird said:


> Bottom line question... I have a NEW Premiere XL4 I ordered from Amazon (actually from Weaknees, fulfilled by Amazon) which I haven't activated yet (I'm waiting for completion of an equipment closet before it will get installed and hooked up). As a long time TiVo customer (assuming that carries any weight) who is responsible for the purchase of around 15 TiVos throughout my family over the years, is there any deal available other than the $399 for MSD I can get for my new Premiere?


If you are asking about lifetime on a new TiVo, that is the best deal I have seen so no, nothing better is available as far as I know. The $99 deal discussed here is available only as a result of several years of monthly or annual subscriptions for a given TiVo. No monthly deal I have seen is anything I would consider superior to a $400 lifetime purchase.


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## manfromnowhere

Thanks to this thread I was armed with a lot of info. I've (stupidly) been paying monthly on my TiVo for almost 7 years now. I got my rate down to the retention $9.95 MSD rate despite having only my one TiVo, and tried a year or two ago to get the $99 lifetime and was turned down. Honestly.. I didn't think I'd use my TiVo much but now I can't live without it!

My TiVo HD recently had a dead hard drive - which I just replaced and am now doing a 'clear and delete all' since I used a fresh image. Anyhow, after reading this thread I called again and now have $99 lifetime service!

I called and said:
1. I'd like to know if my TiVo HD qualifies for the $99 lifetime service offer (true)
2. My cable company is offering a free DVR for two years, then $15/mo like TiVo, but I would like to save $ now and see what's available at the end of the two years (true)
3. I'd like to stay with TiVo so what are my options? (true)

The lady looked over my account and no haggling, offered me $99 lifetime service on the spot. I of course took her up on it and already got the email confirmation. It was really fast. Thanks for everyone who contributed!

Next step: reactivating my oldddd TiVo S2 DT and trying to get $99 lifetime on it. Wish me luck!


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## Chris Gerhard

manfromnowhere said:


> Next step: reactivating my oldddd TiVo S2 DT and trying to get $99 lifetime on it. Wish me luck!


I would suggest just buying a used TiVo with lifetime, another TiVoHD or Premiere, rather than adding lifetime to an S2 of any kind at $99.


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## lujan

I think it's a lot easier for those of you that have paid monthly service for a while and then ask for the $99 lifetime. They have already made money from those of you paying the monthly service prior to getting lifetime. For those like me that have never paid any service at all and then want to get the $99 lifetime are SOL.


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## manfromnowhere

Chris Gerhard said:


> I would suggest just buying a used TiVo with lifetime, another TiVoHD or Premiere, rather than adding lifetime to an S2 of any kind at $99.


I ended up finding a cheap S2 with lifetime. Guess not many folks have a use for a TiVo like that. Perfect for my use though.. It'll be hooked up to a TV with basic cable. The TV is basically used to stream online content but it would be nice to have a TV guide and be able to record some shows. Not enough use to justify a more expensive box but a cheap S2 with lifetime is worth it.

I actually bought another TiVo HD but it has a bulging capacitor . Never soldered before but I'm pretty handy. I work on our cars and computers, but I've never soldered. Maybe I'll try and fix it and activate it. Thankfully my own TiVo HD has no outwardly visible problems with its capacitors, even after 7 years.

I'm really happy to have my TiVo back. AND it now has a 1TB drive. I was always running out of space on the original 160GB drive.


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## JasonD

To me paying $200 for an upgrade to a Tivo Premiere is definately worth it. I don't understand why everyone is stuck on the $99 dollar thing.

Jason


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## manfromnowhere

Decided to jump on a TiVo Premiere w/ lifetime service for $195 shipped. The S2 I bought was underquoted on shipping so the total actually came to $85 shipped. The seller offered to cancel the transaction which I think I will do. I decided that was a bit much for such an old TiVo.. one that uses a PATA hard drive! At least the Premiere is much newer, takes a standard SATA hard drive, and has much higher resale value though I think we'll use it till I can't fix it. The Premiere I bought comes with the wireless G adapter, HDMI cable, Glo remote, and of course the lifetime service.

I hope transferring the lifetime to me isn't a pain. I'm buying it off Amazon. I don't know if the seller notified TiVo or how that works, so hopefully they'll get back to me if I need them to do the transfer. They did advertise it as having lifetime service so I would assume they know they need to transfer that over.


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## shwru980r

SVTarHeel said:


> I called in this past week, attempting to get $99 lifetime on the 320GB Premiere I got from craigslist. The rep said that, since the previous owner closed her account, all history of this unit was wiped away, so the previous 3+ years of monthly service don't matter at all. He told me that she was never eligible for $99 like she told me, just $199 (I guess it's possible she got the numbers confused). He also said that he'd been there for years and had seen it all and that there was NO WAY to get $99 lifetime on this unit since it wasn't old enough - that offer was mainly for series 3s.


You need to activate the Tivo on your account with monthly service. You have a 30 day trial period where you can cancel the service. Call back around day 25 and tell them you are cancelling the service, but would be interested in $99 lifetime service. The CSR is going to lie to you and brow beat you so you need to have a thick skin.

It's none of the CSR's business where you acquired the Tivo. Don't make any other statements to the CSR, because you will just give them an excuse not to offer the $99 deal. Reject any other offer they might try to make to you.


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## waynomo

shwru980r said:


> You need to activate the Tivo on your account with monthly service. You have a 30 day trial period where you can cancel the service. Call back around day 25 and tell them you are cancelling the service, but would be interested in $99 lifetime service. The CSR is going to lie to you and brow beat you so you need to have a thick skin.
> 
> It's none of the CSR's business where you acquired the Tivo. Don't make any other statements to the CSR, because you will just give them an excuse not to offer the $99 deal. Reject any other offer they might try to make to you.


I didn't have to do anything except cancel. The CSR offered me the $99 rate without me saying a thing.

Timeline.
Sept. 2, activate TiVoHD at $9.95 a month. 
Sept. 26 called in to cancel. CSR automatically offers me the $99 lifetime.


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## dbwilbur

I really wish I had known about this back in the day when I blindly purchased the lifetime service with my units... sigh


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## waynomo

dbwilbur said:


> I really wish I had known about this back in the day when I blindly purchased the lifetime service with my units... sigh


Just to clarify. I was talking about a used TiVohd that I had acquired. My new units I've always paid the $399.


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## randywalters

For the past few weeks i've been test-driving a monthly Premiere TCD746320 that my boss gave me (he can't use it anymore), and yesterday i had him call Tivo to cancel his service and transfer it to my account, and i also had him ask for the $99 Lifetime and they cheerfully agreed, no problem. They also offered to give him a reference number for me to use to transfer it to my account so that it goes on my credit card instead of his. I called later that day and completed the transaction and it all went very smoothly. 

I just ordered a 2TB Hard Drive Upgrade from dvr_dude on Ebay so now i'm future-proofed and have way more space than i'll ever need. I'm constantly running out of space on my old 500GB Series 3 the past few years so this will be a refreshing upgrade - and for a hair over $265 total investment :up:


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## waynomo

randywalters said:


> I just ordered a 2TB Hard Drive Upgrade from dvr_dude on Ebay so now i'm future-proofed and have way more space than i'll ever need. I'm constantly running out of space on my old 500GB Series 3 the past few years so this will be a refreshing upgrade - and for a hair over $265 total investment :up:


(Evil laugh) I thought the same thing when I purchased my Roamio Pro. I'm always over 90% now. I'm always figuring out what to delete or what to transfer. Good luck.


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## tivoboy

like many monthly revenue companies (read XM, Sirius, mobile providers, cable co's) it's far better to keep a unit/subscriber "active" than to cancel and add to churn. While it may be a hassle to call and always get the right rep, this sort of thing is going to be around a while.


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## ncbill

Same here -base Roamio, 3TB upgrade, 93% full.

I decided to order another 3TB drive for when my Roamio OTA arrives.



waynomo said:


> (Evil laugh) I thought the same thing when I purchased my Roamio Pro. I'm always over 90% now. I'm always figuring out what to delete or what to transfer. Good luck.


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## nooneuknow

I have to keep deleting older stuff to make room on 3TB drives in my base Roamios. I even record my repeats in SD to save space.

I break the 90% mark, then knock it back down to just above 60%, only to keep seeing > 90% later on, down the road. All it takes is a few HD movies, in addition to what I regularly watch, then delete. There are still a great many who think that nobody is using up their 3TB or 4TB.


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## waynomo

nooneuknow said:


> There are still a great many who think that nobody is using up their 3TB or 4TB.


The fallacy of relying on yourself as a sample size of 1 to make assumptions.


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## nooneuknow

waynomo said:


> The fallacy of relying on yourself as a sample size of 1 to make assumptions.


What about those posting that they aren't buying anybody needs more than 3TB or 4TB, total? Please go find them, and share your witty insights with them, too.


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## manfromnowhere

I received my Premiere today and transferred it and the PLS to my existing TiVo account without a hitch. It has the stock hard drive which I would like to upgrade later but for the time being I'll leave it as it is. I just put a 1TB drive into my TiVo HD which is now going to my gf.

The seller included his email confirmation from TiVo showing his purchase of $99 PLS, and he emailed me a reference number which I did not end up needing.

EDIT: Cancelled my old S2 that I had reactivated. The rep pushed REALLY HARD for me to keep it. First offering one month free to think about it. Then two months. Then a Roamio for $175 + transfer my $12.95 service plan to it. Then the Roamio deal AND the two free months. Honestly, I would have kept it for a spare TV if she had offered $50 lifetime like I've seen in the past but no dice. Doesn't matter to me though, I only really need two TiVos. Maybe I'll get a special offer for it later so I'm just going to put it away.


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## dcborn61

Just tried to get better than $399 for a Premeire but the rep (I pressed the cancel option) said she couldn't do any better. 30 day window ends tomorrow, I guess I'll try again.


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## gsol

dcborn61 said:


> Just tried to get better than $399 for a Premeire but the rep (I pressed the cancel option) said she couldn't do any better. 30 day window ends tomorrow, I guess I'll try again.


I tried this too, last May with no luck (only $399 option). Kept the Premiere XL on monthly - no contract at $14.99. Tried again end of August and got same story $399. Called today and said I wanted to cancel because I had gotten a mini and didn't need the Premiere monthly payments. Was offered
$99 lifetime and I jumped on it. So, keep trying and it may work.


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## SVTarHeel

shwru980r said:


> You need to activate the Tivo on your account with monthly service. You have a 30 day trial period where you can cancel the service. Call back around day 25 and tell them you are cancelling the service, but would be interested in $99 lifetime service. The CSR is going to lie to you and brow beat you so you need to have a thick skin.


I'm signed up for monthly and our 30 days ends in the first week of November, but I'm going to call later tonight or tomorrow to see if the end of the fiscal quarter makes any difference re: potential quotas, etc. I was wondering if anyone had had any positive or negative experiences these last couple of days.


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## dcborn61

SVTarHeel said:


> I was wondering if anyone had had any positive or negative experiences these last couple of days.


I struck out on the 26th. #GoDuke!


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## mplamann

SVTarHeel said:


> I was wondering if anyone had had any positive or negative experiences these last couple of days.


I called Tivo customer service about cancelling two Premiere units (basic 2 tuner models -- nothing special, but work well for me for non-cable OTA use) that had been month-to-month for some time. With no questions asked they offered me $99 lifetime on both units.

Not sure if it has any influence on their decision to offer that lifetime rate, but I've had various Tivo units since Series 1 back in 1999 or 2000. Does customer history have anything to do with whether they make you a discounted PLS offer or not? In other words, they've already taken lots of my money already...


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## waynomo

mplamann said:


> Not sure if it has any influence on their decision to offer that lifetime rate, but I've had various Tivo units since Series 1 back in 1999 or 2000. Does customer history have anything to do with whether they make you a discounted PLS offer or not? In other words, they've already taken lots of my money already...


I think it's one factor they take into consideration. They've certainly mentioned it when I've talked to them on the phone.


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## Reeber

I came across this thread and decided to try and get my $19.99 monthly service charge reduced. I have had a series 4 premiere for 4 years now. I asked about the lifetime service and was informed it would cost $499.00. Wow that's a bit much. I then asked about lowering the monthly charge and after being put on hold a few times they reduced it to 14.99 a month. Better than nothing and certainly worth a 10 minute call. I mainly use the tivo desktop app to transfer my shows onto my IPod so I can watch them when I am out of the house. The premiere is mostly loaded up with my kids stuff and is used to run Netflix for them as well.


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## SVTarHeel

SVTarHeel said:


> I called in this past week, attempting to get $99 lifetime on the 320GB Premiere I got from craigslist. The rep said that, since the previous owner closed her account, all history of this unit was wiped away, so the previous 3+ years of monthly service don't matter at all. He told me that she was never eligible for $99 like she told me, just $199 (I guess it's possible she got the numbers confused). He also said that he'd been there for years and had seen it all and that there was NO WAY to get $99 lifetime on this unit since it wasn't old enough - that offer was mainly for series 3s.
> 
> At this point, I'm leaning toward trying to downgrade my DirecTV package - or see if I can get some discounts - and cutting my losses with my TiVo experiment. One last gasp may be that I saw where someone mentioned that the end-of-quarter time frame may yield better offers. My month-long trial ends Nov 6th, so I'll probably call back near the end of this month to see if cancelling during my initial 30-days of service yields anything.


Just a quick update...

Some family illness prevented me from getting back to TiVo at the end of October like I had planned. Fortunately, I remembered the 30-day window on day 29. I called to cancel, based on the info quoted above, but was immediately offered $99 lifetime, which I accepted.

I have no idea if my newness as a customer helped or hurt with the initial CSR or with the retention agent, but I now have $129 invested in a TCD746320 with lifetime.


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## unitron

SVTarHeel said:


> Just a quick update...
> 
> Some family illness prevented me from getting back to TiVo at the end of October like I had planned. Fortunately, I remembered the 30-day window on day 29. I called to cancel, based on the info quoted above, but was immediately offered $99 lifetime, which I accepted.
> 
> I have no idea if my newness as a customer helped or hurt with the initial CSR or with the retention agent, but I now have $129 invested in a TCD746320 with lifetime.


Then we're just going to have to call you bandit from now on, 'cause you made out like one big time.


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## Darkon

I have two 2-tuner Premiers w/lifetime and bought a TiVo Mini in the hope I could find some way to get it working with the 2-tuner models by activating and cancelling a 4-tuner Premier I had sitting in my garage. No luck (which wasn't too surprising based on what I had read). 

I called them 2 or 3 times looking for a discount on PLS for the 4-tuner model, letting them know that I only activated the unit so I could use the Minis and would be OK with having the PLS cancelled on one of my other units, but still no luck. They only offered to give me a reduced monthly service fee after paying full-price for 1 year, which would totally defeat the purpose of the Mini.

I tried one more time via web chat and clearly stated that after doing some research I had heard that some people were offered $99 PLS and if under what conditions I could get the same offer. The person said that was probably only for someone that had been a subscriber for more than 10 years. When I said I was a subscriber for 10 years, he said I would need to talk to someone on the phone since credit card information would be involved.

I called and eventually got sent to Cancellations (even though I was told I was being forwarded to Advanced Billing) and finally got someone that was able to help. She confirmed I had been a subscriber for more than 10 years and began looking for options. I said my main goal was to get the Minis working w/o monthly fees, but wanted to know what all of my options were. 

Eventually she came back with the following:
$199.99 for PLS for my Premiere 4

$199.99 for a Roamio (base model) with $199.99 PLS
$399.99 for a Roamio Plus with $99.99 PLS
$599.99 for a Roamio Pro with $99.99 PLS

It sounded like the Roamio deals were a limited offering only for this month, and only under certain situations and the $199.99 PLS for my Premiere 5 sounded like a special exception was made for me since it was a newly activated unit (many of the deals in this thread appear to be for units that have been on a monthly subscription under one account or another for a while)

I ended up going with the Roamio Plus with PLS for ~$500 since that hit my sweet spot and I can always upgrade the drive later (or sooner) to 3TB for roughly 1/2 of the Pro price difference.


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## BrentOMatic

Anyone with 10+ years of service get this deal as posted on Slick Deals?

http://slickdeals.net/f/7371222-tiv...nt=u1834502&utm_campaign=tu-9999#post71830078


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## davezatz

Hasn't come my way...although I did receive a comparatively not-so-favorable offer in October: $874 for Lifetimed Pro. Honestly, I'll probably get get a Stream if/when Android downloads arrive and leave the Premiere XL4 headless in the basement - it does what it needs to.


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## Darkon

BrentOMatic said:


> Anyone with 10+ years of service get this deal as posted on Slick Deals?
> 
> http://slickdeals.net/f/7371222-tiv...nt=u1834502&utm_campaign=tu-9999#post71830078


Uh...did you read the last post in this thread immediately before yours before posing this question?

That SD post is pretty much a direct copy of what I posted a few days ago. At least the poster gave some indirect credit to the "TiVo forums", though it would have been nice if they made it clearer where they got the info for the deal.

And yes, others besides myself have been able to get this deal, but it does appear to require at least 10+ years of being a TiVo subscriber.


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## BrentOMatic

Darkon said:


> Uh...did you read the last post in this thread immediately before yours before posing this question?


tl;dr


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## gigaguy

As far as $99 PLS, I thought that if the Premiere had been activated for 3 years you got offered the $99 deal. that's what I got on a Premiere I bought on craiglslist and used for 2 months, then when I added a used XL4 I bought that already had lifetime, Tivo offered me $99 on the used Premiere. I had only used it for 2 months, but I guess the previous owner activated it about 2.5 years earlier.
this was about 6 months ago..


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## SVTarHeel

Just had a random thought... has anyone ever noticed any difference in $99 lifetime being offered differently for Premieres that were activated online vs using a CSR?


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## shwru980r

Darkon said:


> I called them 2 or 3 times looking for a discount on PLS for the 4-tuner model, letting them know that I only activated the unit so I could use the Minis and would be OK with having the PLS cancelled on one of my other units, but still no luck.


You're being too flexible. Don't give the CR any leeway. They either give you lifetime service for $99 or else they must cancel your monthly subscription. If they send you to cancellations, then you hang up and call back again. The CR will brow beat you and tell you all kinds of lies, if you give them an opening.


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## tazmandman

Just wanted to chime in on my own experience recently - I have 2 Premieres that were on month to month service since the Aug/Sept 2011 timeframe. 

I called to "cancel" both Premiere subscriptions as I had just bought a Roamio w/lifetime.

The CR started putting in the actual cancellation paperwork when she asked "what are you going to do with your old premiere(s)?" - I told her that they would probably sit in a closet since I couldn't resell with any value unless they had lifetime on them. It wasn't until the very end when she said, "I can put lifetime on both for $99 each if you want" and so we went ahead with the deal.


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## dcline414

timatkn said:


> Sorry wasn't following the thread. I tried through chat first as well, same response as you. Have to call to find out.
> 
> T


Finally got around to calling... there was no ambiguity in the response at all.

We have had monthly service for 35.5 months (will be 3 years in mid January). The rep put me on hold and then came back and said that even a day less than 3 years and a conversion to lifetime would cost $199. If I call back in 2 weeks then I will be able to convert our premiere to lifetime for $99, but the system would not accept the code until exactly 3 years from the first date of service.

I didn't threaten to cancel or anything, but after 36 months of continuous service it sounds like anyone should be able to convert to lifetime for $99. $15 x 36 + $99 is only $639, so not a terrible option if you can't afford the cost of lifetime service up front (or just don't want to make such an expensive commitment before trying things out for a while).

I am hoping we will be able to do the same lifetime conversion on the Roamio OTA we are about to upgrade to in 3 years.


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## phone man

dcline414 said:


> Finally got around to calling... there was no ambiguity in the response at all.
> 
> We have had monthly service for 35.5 months (will be 3 years in mid January). The rep put me on hold and then came back and said that even a day less than 3 years and a conversion to lifetime would cost $199. If I call back in 2 weeks then I will be able to convert our premiere to lifetime for $99, but the system would not accept the code until exactly 3 years from the first date of service.
> 
> I didn't threaten to cancel or anything, but after 36 months of continuous service it sounds like anyone should be able to convert to lifetime for $99. $15 x 36 + $99 is only $639, so not a terrible option if you can't afford the cost of lifetime service up front (or just don't want to make such an expensive commitment before trying things out for a while).
> 
> I am hoping we will be able to do the same lifetime conversion on the Roamio OTA we are about to upgrade to in 3 years.


 I just found out about the $99 Lifetime subscription option for owners of three + year old Premieres. I called today and found out I'm eligible so I bought the Lifetime deal. No more $9.99 per month. It was a special rate for OTA only in the fall of 2011. For us it's been $9.99 for 37 months plus $99 Lifetime going forward = $469 total subscription cost since Nov 2011.

I've been happy with the Tivo and happy to be free of catv bills for three years. Now my only expense for TV is Netflix.


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## beyondthetech

My 3-year anniversary of my Premiere XL4 is July 2015, so the rep would only give me $199 for Lifetime, or $99 when July hits. Considering I'm at $14.99/month, seven months of it would be $104.93, then $99. Saved $5 and took the $199 now, and it's lifetime. Thanks for the heads up.


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## Pacomartin

beyondthetech said:


> My 3-year anniversary of my Premiere XL4 is July 2015, so the rep would only give me $199 for Lifetime, or $99 when July hits.


Is there any indication when the $199 rate kicks in? Just calculating the two year monthly payments at 2*12*$15=$360 I would hope it kicks in at two years.


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## beyondthetech

I only went by what was on this thread, which saved me from TiVo charging me $499 for lifetime (thank you!). By the numbers, I would gather they will calculate how much it's going to be the same way they did for me. $199 is 14 months of $14.99-19.99/mo, so I think after 2 years of service, they'll consider the $199 lifetime if you play nice with the customer service rep, and $99 after 3 years of service.


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## roto

It seems the 3 year requirement isn't necessarily set in stone.

I took advantage of the Roamio deal last month, and yesterday I finally got around to calling and cancelling the Premiere 4 I replaced. I've only had monthly service on it since October 2013. Without even asking, the representative offered lifetime for $99, and I took it.


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## pcbrew

Can you just call ask for the reduced price lifetime or do you have to go through the cancellation dance?

I have a Premier 4 that is less than 2 years old but shows on the account as activated from 2006 as I got it grandfathered in on a low cost plan. Any idea if this will be eligible for $99 or even $199 LT?


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## Pacomartin

roto said:


> It seems the 3 year requirement isn't necessarily set in stone.


I doubt very much that the offers would be set in stone. I imagine corporate is very concerned about public perception of certain statistics affecting stock prices; aka this article:
TiVo Drops Below 1 Million Retail Subscribers Dave Zatz - August 28, 2013
No doubt the directive comes from up high not to lose subscribers.

There is some indication that TiVo inc. may be settling for as little as $2-$3 from each DVR through the MVPD deals. Now obviously the penetration numbers are much much higher, but the retail customer is icing on the cake.


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## wmhjr

I just canceled service on a Premier on Friday. That Premier was my last one, and was put in service on Nov 1, 2012. It was the only "month to month" unit I had/have. I really didn't intend to keep it that long. 

Tivo tried to convince me to purchase Lifetime at a "discount" for it. Their best price was $199. I specifically mentioned that it was too much, and I would "think about it" if it were $99. That rep put me on hold to check, but came back in 3-4 minutes and said it just was not possible. So I canceled. Already returned the CableCard to Verizon. Premier is still technically "active" as they don't shut it off immediately and pro-rate - they let the subscription run out. 

I don't see any real sense from Tivo that they're being more flexible with the lifetime issue. I'm going to hang onto it for a while since it really doesn't have that much value, and call and ask again in 6 months or so. I doubt it will ever happen now that I've taken it off my account but you never know. Even if that happens, I'd only turn around and resell it anyway so it's not a big deal.


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## jrtroo

From what I have seen, you are more likely to get a $99 offer outright if you are a long term user and are upgrading to a Roamio. Othwerwise, it is more hit or miss, with both the CSR and their supervisor. Enabling service online and then calling to cancel has worked best for me, but once I got a $99 offer and another time the best I could do was $199.


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## squint

It might help if you've already upgraded to a lifetime Roamio and already disconnected your monthly Premiere.


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## unitron

wmhjr said:


> I just canceled service on a Premier on Friday. That Premier was my last one, and was put in service on Nov 1, 2012. It was the only "month to month" unit I had/have. I really didn't intend to keep it that long.
> 
> Tivo tried to convince me to purchase Lifetime at a "discount" for it. Their best price was $199. I specifically mentioned that it was too much, and I would "think about it" if it were $99. That rep put me on hold to check, but came back in 3-4 minutes and said it just was not possible. So I canceled. Already returned the CableCard to Verizon. Premier is still technically "active" as they don't shut it off immediately and pro-rate - they let the subscription run out.
> 
> I don't see any real sense from Tivo that they're being more flexible with the lifetime issue. I'm going to hang onto it for a while since it really doesn't have that much value, and call and ask again in 6 months or so. I doubt it will ever happen now that I've taken it off my account but you never know. Even if that happens, I'd only turn around and resell it anyway so it's not a big deal.


It would have hit the 3 year mark this coming November.

Is the monthly rent on it times 9 anywhere in the vicinity of $100?

Because you could have looked at that $199 as paying $100 for service through the first of November of this year and having it on $99 lifetime after that.

I fear resale value without a sub is going to be quite unimpressive.


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## jrtroo

A premiere is worth around $30, at best, without a subscription. I have purchased three of them for $25 in different transactions from craigslist, gotten lifetime on all. One for 200, and two for 100. Good luck.


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## pcbrew

roto said:


> It seems the 3 year requirement isn't necessarily set in stone.
> 
> I took advantage of the Roamio deal last month, and yesterday I finally got around to calling and cancelling the Premiere 4 I replaced. I've only had monthly service on it since October 2013. Without even asking, the representative offered lifetime for $99, and I took it.


I am in similar situation - activated in July 2013 and just took their Roamio deal in December. But, I struck out completely this week on any kind of LT discount for the Premier 4. 
Guess I'll try again next month.


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## wmhjr

jrtroo said:


> From what I have seen, you are more likely to get a $99 offer outright if you are a long term user and are upgrading to a Roamio. Othwerwise, it is more hit or miss, with both the CSR and their supervisor. Enabling service online and then calling to cancel has worked best for me, but once I got a $99 offer and another time the best I could do was $199.


I am a long term user. I have 2 Roamio Pros, had this Premier, 2 minis, and an HD. I was purchasing another 2 minis.


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## wmhjr

unitron said:


> It would have hit the 3 year mark this coming November.
> 
> Is the monthly rent on it times 9 anywhere in the vicinity of $100?
> 
> Because you could have looked at that $199 as paying $100 for service through the first of November of this year and having it on $99 lifetime after that.
> 
> I fear resale value without a sub is going to be quite unimpressive.


No, the monthly rent would have been $135. So, doing it then would actually be even more expensive than just doing it now.

Doing it now... $199
Total cost of doing it in Nov: $234

In either case, I would frankly just be paying for lifetime to sell it and break even with my lifetime upgrade. Makes zero sense.

I am not thinking about resale without a sub. As I said, I may try a couple times over the next handful of months and ask again. If it comes down to $99 then I'll bite and resell it. But in the meantime I've removed it and am not paying for service.

My guess remains that I'll keep it in storage as a "spare" for a while, and will end up throwing it away.


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## shwru980r

wmhjr said:


> I just canceled service on a Premier on Friday. That Premier was my last one, and was put in service on Nov 1, 2012. It was the only "month to month" unit I had/have. I really didn't intend to keep it that long.
> 
> Tivo tried to convince me to purchase Lifetime at a "discount" for it. Their best price was $199. I specifically mentioned that it was too much, and I would "think about it" if it were $99. That rep put me on hold to check, but came back in 3-4 minutes and said it just was not possible. So I canceled. Already returned the CableCard to Verizon. Premier is still technically "active" as they don't shut it off immediately and pro-rate - they let the subscription run out.
> 
> I don't see any real sense from Tivo that they're being more flexible with the lifetime issue. I'm going to hang onto it for a while since it really doesn't have that much value, and call and ask again in 6 months or so. I doubt it will ever happen now that I've taken it off my account but you never know. Even if that happens, I'd only turn around and resell it anyway so it's not a big deal.


You should have hung up when they sent you to cancellations and called right back and started the process over again. You don't have any leverage once the service is cancelled.

You also need to check your credit card to make sure they really cancelled the service. This sounds like one of those scenarios where the CSR will accidentally on purpose not cancel your service and hope you don't notice.


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## dcline414

shwru980r said:


> You should have hung up when they sent you to cancellations and called right back and started the process over again. You don't have any leverage once the service is cancelled.


The cancellation (aka advanced services?) department is the only one that has access to deals like $99 lifetime.

I followed the prompts to cancellation, and told the rep we were just trying to cut our bills down and wanted to find out about getting lifetime service. Since we had to wait two weeks until the 3 year mark, she said that she had noted my account so anyone would be able to assist me when I called back.

I just followed the prompts to general account service when I called back, and the rep said they had to transfer me to advanced services because only they had access to the place where the code needed to be entered for the lifetime discount.

So not just any rep can do it.


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## shwru980r

dcline414 said:


> The cancellation (aka advanced services?) department is the only one that has access to deals like $99 lifetime.
> 
> I followed the prompts to cancellation, and told the rep we were just trying to cut our bills down and wanted to find out about getting lifetime service. Since we had to wait two weeks until the 3 year mark, she said that she had noted my account so anyone would be able to assist me when I called back.
> 
> I just followed the prompts to general account service when I called back, and the rep said they had to transfer me to advanced services because only they had access to the place where the code needed to be entered for the lifetime discount.
> 
> So not just any rep can do it.


I never got sent to advanced services. The CR that answered my call eventually wound up giving me the $99 lifetime service, but put me on hold a couple of times.

I was initially told that the 2 tuner premiere was their latest most advanced model and it was impossible to get $99 lifetime service. The premiere wasn't even on my account previously until I added it 22 days before I called to cancel. It was in service for 2 years on someone elses account.


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## h2oskierc

Sweet! PLS for $99. Thanks for the heads up all. Activated mine 12/10/2010...


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## wish_bgr

I upgraded to the refurbished Roamio Pro for $199, $19.99 monthly when it was offered around Thanksgiving 2014. I got around to setting it up on 2/2/15, as I didn't want to FUBAR during the Super Bowl (and also had a bunch of shows on the Premiere to get around to)

I successfully transferred the Comcast CableCard over to the new unit, and called a couple days later to check if I needed to discontinue the Premiere and switch over to just the Roamio Pro. As he thanked me for my 9 years of total service, the rep offered the PLS for $99. I took it, as I would set up this unit for my parents.

Checking when I activated the Premiere, it was back in 12/2011. I'm off to set up a CableCard for the parentals!


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## jaydro

Just my $0.02: came back to this thread after originally ignoring it when I thought it only applied to those adding a new device and wanting to convert an older device to lifetime.

I have a Premiere XL activated under the antenna-only $9.99/month promotion in the fall of 2011. I called, chose the "cancel service" line, said I'm thinking about cancelling, but wondered if I could get a discount on lifetime service. The CSR said absolutely, since I had an over-ten-year-old SVR2000 with lifetime on my account (hah! I tried to get that removed after it went to electronics recycling--had never transferred it to another TiVo because I had DirecTiVo for many years) and had over three years on my XL: $99.

No problems. Done and done.

Thanks to all the posters.


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## cwag17

I called today and flat out asked if there were any discounted lifetime plans available for the unit that I have (Premiere 4 original Activation 3/13). The rep said that since it was less than 3 years activated she could do the $199 lifetime and credit what I have paid monthly towards it (I reactivated it a few months ago). So it ended up costing me ~$140 which I am happy with. Call took less than 5 minutes.


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## sideshot

I just got the $99.99 lifetime on both boxes the premier was 3+ yrs. and the XL4 would have been 3yrs at 6/15 I had a nice rep he was helpful I didn't yell and scream cancellation I was upfront and we worked it out I don't now if being a past beta tester and being on TiVo advisors panel had anything to do with it but I am happy and had a positive experience.


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## JHawk

I bought a Premiere as an open box for $30 at Nebraska Furniture Mart a couple of years ago. Honestly, I bought it for the remote. I forgot about the Premiere until I started cleaning my basement storage area. After reading this thread I decided to call. Tivo rep confirmed it had never been activated. He offered me the $199 lifetime. I have several other Tivo boxes and have been with them for 13 years which may have played a part in the $199 price. Got a case number as I wasn't sure the Premiere would work since it had been in storage so long but by damn it fired right up. I'm going to take the deal.


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## unitron

cwag17 said:


> I called today and flat out asked if there were any discounted lifetime plans available for the unit that I have (Premiere 4 original Activation 3/13). The rep said that since it was less than 3 years activated she could do the $199 lifetime and credit what I have paid monthly towards it (I reactivated it a few months ago). So it ended up costing me ~$140 which I am happy with. Call took less than 5 minutes.


Probably just as good as or better than, total money wise, paying monthly 
'til March of 2016 and then paying $99.


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## rexreed

Just called to actvate Roamio OTA and then called back to cacel my Premiere after transferring shows. They offerred $99 lifetime on he Premiere. It had been in service 2 years and 2 months. It was a $50 refurb from tivo but I always suspected it was new as I never saw so much as a smudge on it. So now I have a LT Premiere. It will be hard to go back to a Premiere after getting used to the Roamio...


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## Brez717

Consistency sure doesn't seem to be a strong point with TiVO CS - I called on Tuesday to inquire about a better deal on my Premiere XL that has been active since 2010 on a yearly. Was offered NOTHING on that box. I was fishing for the $99 lifetime...

CS Rep did offer a deal on Roamio to replace the S2 DT I've had on $6.95 monthly since 2007 (I think). Think I will take advantage of that one.

Meanwhile, been a subscriber since 2000 - where was/is 10+ loyalty..?

Maybe when calling to accept the Roamio deal I can get the Premiere lifetimed at $99.


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## davezatz

Brez717 said:


> Consistency sure doesn't seem to be a strong point with TiVO CS - I called on Tuesday to inquire about a better deal on my Premiere XL that has been active since 2010 on a yearly. Was offered NOTHING on that box. I was fishing for the $99 lifetime...
> 
> Meanwhile, been a subscriber since 2000 - where was/is 10+ loyalty..?


Did you explicitly ask about either of those deals? I don't think they're promoted or volunteered...


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## jrtroo

Agreed. Call back and shop around for other CSR. Ask directly. Call back. My good luck took a little perseverence.


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## Mikeguy

davezatz said:


> Did you explicitly ask about either of those deals? I don't think they're promoted or volunteered...


I had received an email in January offering the 10-year loyalty deal, and was instructed to call TiVo and specifically ask about it--it was only when I did that in my call that the rep. turned to that page in the script book.

And to be clear, the loyalty offer, at least for me, was not on my current box (an S2), but an offer to get PLS on a new Roamio at an extreme discount, if I also purchased the new Roamio directly from TiVo, at the full MSRP. It is a very nice offer--basically, it gets me a Roamio with PLS for around the same price as I paid for an S2 box with PLS 10 years ago.


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## ChitownCraig

I've only been a customer for about six years and got the $99 after calling in on two of my xl4's. I wish they would of told me sooner.


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## ROMAN1

Did TIvo send you the offer or did you have to solicit them to get it. PLease advise. Thanks!


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## MeInDallas

Looks like Tivo is sending out these offers again:


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## unitron

MeInDallas said:


> Looks like Tivo is sending out these offers again:
> 
> View attachment 22932


Why did they call you a "former" customer?


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## MeInDallas

unitron said:


> Why did they call you a "former" customer?


I'm not sure. I think what it could be is that the computer just saw that particular Tivo was not in service anymore, so it was just worded that way. I got the same email on 2 other Tivo's that were not being used, so I got 3 of them total, instead of just one email about the 3 Tivo's.


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## unitron

MeInDallas said:


> I'm not sure. I think what it could be is that the computer just saw that particular Tivo was not in service anymore, so it was just worded that way. I got the same email on 2 other Tivo's that were not being used, so I got 3 of them total, instead of just one email about the 3 Tivo's.


So what model(s) are the other 2 and why are all 3 gathering dust?


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## MeInDallas

unitron said:


> So what model(s) are the other 2 and why are all 3 gathering dust?


I got it on a Premiere 4 and 2 regular Premieres, and the reason they were gathering dust was I got tired of paying monthly on them, and was hoping eventually I would get the said emails for the $99 deal. I tried calling them a long time ago to try and get the $99 deal but they counter offered for $199 and I refused. So they have been sitting and waiting for such a deal to come along 

I have 2 other ones gathering dust as well, and am hoping I get emails on those too.


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## MeInDallas

And in typical Tivo fashion my card was charged twice for the same transaction  When I called them about it I was told by their rep that "I should check with my bank before I call Tivo freaking out about the situation" her exact words. It reminded me of why I dont have any subs with Tivo anymore.


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## jaydro

MeInDallas said:


> And in typical Tivo fashion my card was charged twice for the same transaction


That's kinda funny--a month after I took the $99 deal I got an e-mail from TiVo saying my charge was declined and my payment was past due etc. etc. Logging into the website showed me fully paid up, so I ignored it--and never heard another thing. Weird.


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