AppleInsider Staff
AT&T on Tuesday announced new loyalty rewards for existing DirecTV customers, offering 12 free months of HBO service to "Go Big" and "Gotta Have It" subscribers, or $5 off the bill of lower tier plans.
Announced through AT&T's DirecTV Now forum, the discounts are automatically applied to customer accounts that were active on Mar. 6. Subscribers who recently cancelled DirecTV Now, or whose accounts were pending cancellation as of Mar. 6, are not eligible for the promotion.
While the reward is accessible to all current customers, only "Go Big" and "Gotta Have It" tiers are eligible for 12 months of completely free HBO streaming. If they opt in, those with lower tier plans "Live a Little" and "Just Right" will see a $5 credit applied to their bills for 6 months. Considering HBO is a $5 per month add-on, lower tier subscribers can apply their credit to try out the premium service for free for half a year.
Finally, customers who prepaid for HBO as part of another offer will see the monthly discount added to their account when the prepayment period expires.
It should be noted that the usual $5 per month HBO charge will automatically resume once the promotional period ends.
With the promotion, AT&T is looking to retain subscribers in the face of stiff competition within the streaming industry, the most recent threat being Google's forthcoming YouTube TV. AT&T rolled out similar incentives to attract new customers last year, including discounted streaming packages and an offer that netted users a free 32GB Apple TV with three months of prepaid service.
Earlier this year, AT&T announced DirecTV Now broke the 200,000 subscriber mark just one month after going live. As AppleInsider noted in our streaming service roundup, however, DirecTV Now has been plagued with quality issues since its launch in November.
Charles Martin
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5 Comments
These Streaming services will have constant struggle capturing cord cutters. keeping them if currently subscribing and those who watch free OTA channels to buy into streaming. Only way to create sticky situation is allow customers who subscribe to one of their base packages to add missing channels in package by paying add-on delta charge say between $0.99-$2.99 per channel depending on it's popularity/demand. SLING is trying similar approach by offering multiple add-on mini packages each for $5. In TV streaming world, customers need channels of their choice in smaller package at reasonable cost.
Today was the last day of my 3-month subscription that I finally got refunded a while back due to constant problems on DTVN's end. I figured I would open the DTVN app on my Apple TV to see if anything had changed since I left. The first thing that popped up with a QP1401 error! I then tried watching an on-demand show, which played, but the audio was several seconds out of sync with the video. I deleted the app from all my devices. Done.
Why is it only Direct TV customers get discounts yet us U-Verse customers who also belong to AT&T seem to be put out to pasture. Might have to have a talk with AT&T about ditching there service since I don't seem to exist.
I opened my email about a free year of HBO this morning. I'm not a huge HBO watcher, but it was a welcome surprise. My 3-month trial of DirecTV NOW just ended but I decided not to cancel (before the free HBO). So far I've received a free Apple TV, a free year or HBO, and 100 channels for $35/month. Steaming has been pretty solid on my Apple TV and iPhone, and it beats paying $50-60/month for cable. I know others have had much worse experience, but personally I've been pretty happy with DirecTV NOW so far.