My free subscription expires in a couple weeks so I called Sirius to see how much renewing would be. I never use satellite radio but I use travel link all the time. I was afraid that I'd have to buy the radio service to get travel link, but no! The guy said I can buy it seperately and its pretty cheap too. Only $40 per year, as opposed to the $210/year it'd be for the radio and travel link.

Just thought I'd let you guys know in case anybody was wondering...

EDIT: Travel Link = $40/year
Sirius Traffic = $30/year

 

That's good to know. We're currently shopping for a 2011 MCA edition and were purposely avoiding any cars with the Electronics Pkg. We have a lifetime Sirius subscription and figured adding Travel Link would cost too much. But $40 a year is nice. Thanks.

 

Sweet! I'm glad the info was able to help you out

 

Does sirius still have the lifetime subscription or did they nix that?

 

I have a Sirius lifetime subscription that I'm going to transfer to the car when the free trial period expires but they still don't know how to add TravelLink or traffic to the lifetime subscription. They say they're working on it.

Apparently the problem is that the Sirius radio and the traffic/TravelLink have the same ESN (they used to be separate ESNs) so they don't know how to manage separate accounts (lifetime radio and annual paid traffic/TravelLink) on a single ESN.

 

Also, I'm sure you can just transfer your radio subscription and leave out the travellink option if you so choose...

 

how much is a lifetime subscription?

 

I got mine on sale about three years ago for $399. I think the regular price was $499 but I don't see it on their website anymore. At $399 I am already ahead of the game (about 31 months to break even) plus lifetime subscriptions include internet access - normally another $2.99 per month.

 

I looked at lifetime (yes it's still offered) but on reading the fine print I was under the impression that lifetime meant for the life of the radio it's originally subscribed to. Is this so or have you been able to transfer to a new radio? Thnx

 

I editted my first post. I wound up buying both the traffic and travel link for $76.30/ year out the door.

Warning: It took 7 phone calls for them to get this right since I wasn't getting the radio subscription.

Also you can't just order the traffic or travellink online because there is no option for it (you have to call in).

 

Yes and no. The "lifetime" of the lifetime subscription refers to the original radio. There are exceptions but even the exceptions have exceptions. If the original radio was a retail one (i.e. not part of a car) you can transfer the subscription to another radio - even one built into a car. If the transfer is because the original radio died and it was within the warranty period, the transfer will be done for free (or at most the $15 activation fee depending on which customer service rep you speak to). Otherwise there is a $75 transfer charge (which often will be waived if you complain enough). You may transfer a maximum of three times although warranty transfers don't generally count.

The situation is different for receivers built into a car. Normally a lifetime subscription for a car is not transferable to another car. Again, this often depends on which customer service rep you get. But I would not recommend buying a lifetime subscription unless you can get your money's worth without transferring to another receiver. In my case, the lifetime subscription on my retail radio has already paid for itself and the $75 transfer fee to the car will only take about a year to balance out.

 

Thanks very much for the info guess I'll do the year to year.