Don’t know if I imagined it, but I thought I heard @Leo say recently that they might be willing to look again at the possibility of annual subscriptions instead of always requiring monthly ones. This would be good news for me, as in order not to get charged interest by my card I have to set a reminder every month to check what I need to pay into the account to keep the balance zero. Being outside the US the conversion rate from dollars is not necessarily the same every time, and they add on a foreign currency fee, and sometimes charge interest on that too. First world problem I know, but I like to keep things paid off, and the variability means I can’t just make a regular payment without checking, plus having a positive balance on the account is strongly frowned on. So if it’s possible to get back to only having to do that once a year, I’d be a very happy bunny.
With the idea of trying to cut back on the challenges / cancellations that caused the shift to monthly, I’d like to suggest maybe wording the receipt for an annual subscription something like this:
"Thank you for setting up your annual Club TWiT subscription to support the This Week in Tech (TWiT.tv) network, which provides you with podcast programming and member benefits.
“Your subscription will renew annually on [date]. If you share the account used to pay for this subscription with a partner, please give them a copy of this receipt so they are aware that this is a legitimate ongoing charge. TWiT is a relatively small business, and is not easily able to absorb the cost of responding to challenges or cancellations of transactions prompted by joint account holders being unaware of an ongoing subscription.”
Just a suggestion from someone without much practical knowledge.
My British card has had a positive balance for about 6 years now!
On the other hand, my bank in Germany automatically zeros my credit card every month, you cannot carry a balance over to the next month. If there isn’t enough money in the current count (checking account), it goes into the overdraught/into the red, but the credit card is always zero at the end of the month.
I wanted a single annual payment as well, but I’m kind of used to the monthly payment these days.
I subscribed to the Club day one and then a while back my subscription just lapsed for some reason. I’d love to just subscribe annually and not think about it for a year.
I do have a card that’s been one penny in credit for several years, but some of the others I’ve used have been quite neurotic about not allowing it. I’m probably also being neurotic about this, but money pressures a while ago left me a bit obsessive about clearing the balances, at the same time reluctant to commit to a “whole-balance” auto-payment in case I ever need to use the credit for something big, e.g. house repairs where I’d need time to clear it. I guess everyone has their own set of priorities, and we’re all different.
Leo said previously he cancelled the annual option because he was concerned about what he would need to do if he had to end the club prior to the subscription being over.
I would love an annual subscription. I had to unsubscribe after my wife and I took a hard look at our spending and had to cut back on a lot of things (not just Club TWIT)- but I might be able to justify an annual subscription as a Christmas or birthday present.
