The free six month of free Sirius Radio and TravelLink on my 09 MMH is about over. I called today to renew, after endless tele-calls to renew in the past weeks.

Footnote: When you purchase a new vehicle, be wary of the phone number you give to Ford, or more specifically the one your dealer records on file for you. Ford passed this on to Sirius, and you get lots of calls to renew. In my case I gave them my daytime work number. Calls sometimes twice a day. Although now that I'm within a week of the renewal date, they have stopped calling.

I knew I was going to renew, but I was wary of doing do for one reason. All the stuff Sirius sends you states 'you agree to automatic renewal for additional period of the same length as the plan you choose, at the current standard rate'.

They cannot bill for the Radio and TravelLink together, they need to do it in two charges. And you cannot renew both online, after a few minutes trying to do so using the online billing screens, I see this message, "If your SIRIUS service also includes SIRIUS Travel Link call 1-866-889-7474 to renew."

And so I called, asked for prices, which I already knew from answering one of the tele-calls, and state I do not want automatic renewal.

And the friendly person says, the only way we can set you up to not automatically renew is to put your CC info in after the trial period expires. I think, that sounds like a subtle way for Sirius to throw up roadblocks to do this. I say, OK, I'll wait. Sirius person sounds like she reading from a script, and evidently the script anticipates that a hangup means a possible lost subscription, Sirius person they says, well we can also mail you an invoice 6-10 days after your renewal date.

I say OK, and ask if there are any additional charges for this. She says $2, but she'll waive that fee. I say OK, and will await the invoices in the mail.

This is part report of my experience, and part questions for anyone who has renewed after an initial 6 month free trial.

Q1: Do you accept the automatic renewal, and just let 'em bill you every period? It sounds like the majority of people do this.

Q2: Has anyone ever gone the paper invoice route? Thus avoiding automatic renewal? Q2b) Did you have uninterrupted service?

Q3: For those setup for automatic renewal, have you ever canceled, and was it a clean process? Based on their relentless tele-calling to go beyond the first six months, I'll guess they hound you?

Comment: It was their relentless and constant tele-calling that raised a flag with me on this.

 

When the initial 6 month trial was running out on my 08FEH, I renewed by phone via credit card for 18 months (I seem to remember getting a good rate at the time). Now it's about 17months later and I got a letter in the mail saying they would automatically renew my subscription if I didn't call in (little did they know the CC they had on file is expired). I too waited through the tele-prompts and recorded advertisements and canceled the auto-renewal and opted for the $2 invoice.

I haven't decided if I'll renew. The wife likes having NPR and I like the Comedy channels but I really haven't liked the rates they have offered lately. I may hold off for a little while and see what happens and how much we miss it.

The 08 didn't have Travel-Link.

I did listen online using their streaming option because it was part of the normal subscription but they changed that a while back (about the time they merged with XM) and now you have to add that to the normal subscription. Not worth paying for in my opinion as there are other options out there.