Every year I play the game with my Sirius / XM Radio service. I have it in my SUV and use the app on my phone. I’m not a huge user, but I do like having it. The ongoing problem – as with many subscription services – is that they jack up the price every year if you don’t renegotiate.

Over the last year, I’ve been paying $9.73 a month. I got a letter in the mail that my current “promotional offer” has ended and that my new price would be $25.58. An increase of 2.6x …!?

It wasn’t a big surprise as they do this to me every year. They always think their service is worth about $300/year, but they are nice enough to include a telephone number for me to call them and pretend to cancel.

This year I was surprised when they did prepare to cancel me. I literally had to ask them, “are you going to straightaway cancel me, or offer me another promotional offer?” Confused by the annual ritual, the Sirius / XM operator then put me on hold and came back with a new plan that was $10.40 a month. Initially, I thought that was a reasonable (+7%), given I haven’t had much of an increase in a few years.

As I was trying to clarify with her that the deal included both the car radio receiver and the phone app, I typed “Sirius / XM radio deals” into Google. Google AI Gemini popped up with a suggestion to ask for their “99FOR36” plan, which is available for “retaining loyal users”. This deal was $99 for 3 full years, or just $2.75 a month. Wait, what …?!

I asked her to look it up and sure enough – that’s my new deal. I paid for it all upfront – $104 after taxes. Three years.

I’ve done deal look-ups before, but I don’t usually spend to much time looking for them. This was amazing because AI just stepped in and gave me a great deal to ask for without even really looking for it. And, it worked! Makes you wonder what impact AI is going to have on inflation over the next 10 years as more and more people benefit from greater pricing transparency?

Do you have an annual subscription that you have to fight with every year?

Image: Pixabay