Always Look for a Discount Before Paying Full Price
I just got back from a 2 day conference (Affiliate Summit East 2010) in New York City. It’s a trip I planned over 2 months ago, where I booked my flight and hotel. However, I didn’t register for conference which initially would have cost me $99 for the cheapest pass.
To my surprise when I went to purchase the pass the price jumped to $249. I didn’t realize the price would change and wasn’t too happy about it. On top of that, the website claimed that there was only 2 more days to purchase the pass. I also quickly found out via a few blog visits that every year the conference gets sold out so to buy your pass early.
I wasn’t happy about paying the $249, because last year I attended free by winning a pass. So I began to search the internet to see if I could find a free or discounted pass. I was able to find a coupon code that took 10% off, so that would drop the price to $224. I still wasn’t happy and started to search forums and tweets (at Twitter.com) for anyone willing to sell their pass or had an extra pass they wouldn’t mind giving to me for free (yea right)!
I was able for find a couple of people on Twitter who was giving away extra passes they had, but I was too late. I also found a few people on Digital Point forum who wanted to sell me a pass. But I didn’t have to pay for a pass because I ended up getting one for free!
How did I get it for free you ask? One tactic I decided to try was to call the company and simply ask very nicely to buy the pass for $99. I’d tell them I’m in a financial crunch and didn’t realize the price of the ticket would more than double. It didn’t work, however, during the conversation, the lady told me to enter their sweepstakes to win a pass. She mentioned for the next several days, they’d give away 1 free pass everyday. The same sweepstakes she mentioned I had entered several months before and of course I didn’t win. So I decided to enter the sweepstakes again. After a trip to the gym to release my frustration, I was greeted by an email that I a won a pass. This was a more expensive pass valued at $549. That made my day!
So the lesson to this story is to always try for a discount before paying full price. I’ve been surprised on several occasions to get a discount on purchases just by asking. Additionally, many times I’ve searched the Internet for coupons / discount codes to save on purchases.
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