Two years ago, or maybe longer, ASTRO offered me their cheapest ASTRO subscription ever.
I say it was the cheapest ASTRO subscription ever because I had all the free ASTRO channels, with addition to their Sports pack, at just RM31.80 (including tax).
Usually, Sports packages would bump up any ASTRO subscription significantly, so getting it at RM31.80 was an amazing deal.
HOW I GOT MY ASTRO CHEAP ASTRO SUBSRIPTION
Probably you are wondering how I got the deal in the first place.
Well, a couple of years ago, I wanted to terminate my ASTRO subscription because I realized I was paying over RM170 for ASTRO Super Pack, and hardly had any time to watch the channels.
There’s also plenty of great Android boxes in Malaysia which would allow me to watch tonnes of movies.
After consideration, I decided I should just end the subscription and sign up for ASTRO NJOI instead.
ASTRO NJOI was a free-to-use service which had all of ASTRO’s free channels with selected channels available on a ‘Pay-per-view’ basis.
I figured that this sort of plan worked well for me given that I usually watch TV for movies and dramas, and would only want to watch sports when I had the time.
That said, I called ASTRO up at 0395433838 and talked to their customer service about shifting my NJOI.
ASTRO countered and offered me a cheaper deal which included the movie packages, which was slightly cheaper that my current package.
I declined the offer, and they offered me another, which I accepted. At this point, the new package included all channels at a much lower price, but it will end in three month.
That said, when the three months ended, I called ASTRO up to end my subscription again.
ASTRO again countered.
However, I was determined to save cash, and they finally asked what channels mattered most to me. I told them, the only reason I was keeping ASTRO was for the football channels, in which they then offered to give me the all the sports channels and free channels for just RM31.80, hence the deal.
Like the previous offer, the cheapest ASTRO subscription came with an expiration date.
So, for the past two years, I had been calling ASTRO a week before the expiring date to cancel my ASTRO account, only to be offered the same package at the same price.
For me, paying RM31.80 monthly with the privilege’s of having live football on my television is cheap enough, and I was keen to keep this package for as long as I could.
WHY DID I END THE DEAL?
But as they said, all good things will have an end.
This was the same to this cheapest ASTRO subscription I had.
Last month, a week before my ASTRO subscription was due to expire, I called ASTRO again.
A lady picked up, and after telling her I wanted to terminate my ASTRO as the cheapest ASTRO subscription would be over, she countered immediately with a more expensive package.
I declined the offer, and it was that. She didn’t counter offer as previous customer support staff did, and began to handle the termination of my account.
This was a bummer, but I guess perhaps ASTRO had a time limit for such cheapest ASTRO subscription, and I had hit it.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Here’s the issue however. I had expected an extension of the RM31.80 cheapest ASTRO subscription, that I totally forgot my back-up plan shall I not get the offer again.
By right, I wanted to switch my ASTRO plan to NJOI, and I forgot to mention that during the last call to the customer service.
So, the customer service officer that took care of my ASTRO termination case went on to cancel my subscription, without converting my plan to ASTRO NJOI.
Due to this, I am now re-applying to get ASTRO NJOI and am waiting for a response from ASTRO.
Regardless, it was a good run with the cheapest ASTRO subscription, and I do hope that one day, the prices of sports packages would go as low as I was offered.