Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Today, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the “secret codes” that cable companies make available to customers who can’t yet bear to cut the cord completely because of their beloved HBO and accompanying HBO Go accounts. These codes give people access to bare bones cable packages, Internet, and HBO — and the bundle saves us money. Gasp! We know, we were skeptical, too, but here’s the scoop.
Apparently Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T all have “downgraded” cable packages that include the basics — broadcast and Internet — plus HBO for a deal that’s less than half of what you’re probably paying for cable right now in addition to all your streaming subscriptions. That’s a heck of a lot of cash being shelled out if you aren’t watching the majority of what’s being offered.
According the WSJ, all you have to do is ask for the Internet Plus deal if you’re a Comcast or AT&T customer, Starter TV + HBO if you have Time Warner, and the “50/25 Mbps + News and Sports + HBO” deal if you have Verizon (yeah, that sounds a little more complicated). Most importantly: stay firm, as the representative will try to keep you enrolled in a more expensive, more expansive plan.
You’ll potentially save dough, but HBO definitely comes out the winner here. They get to keep customers or even acquire newbies, get a slice of the deal they have with cable companies, and reduce their insane piracy rates. It’s probably worth your while to dig deeper (this requires some investigative work) and see if more remote cable companies, other than the four giants, have similar deals and if they’ll actually stick around when more people find out about them. It’s no surprise that these companies aren’t advertising these discounted packages on their homepages, but it seems like it’s worth a shot to call and see if you can cut out the crap on cable you never watch anyway and still keep your HBO and HBO Go. After all, what will you do if you can’t take part in hate-watching The Leftovers with everyone at the office? You might as well just call it quits for the rest of the summer.
