NowTV Boost price increase - will it apply for existing customers?

[Ant42]

Forgive me if this has already been answered elsewhere, I haven't been able to find it.

I've only just found out that the Boost price has been increased from £3 to £5 per month for new customers. Does anyone know yet if this increase will be applied to existing customers at any point, or will the price remain at £3?

I ask because the only thing I use NowTV for is Formula 1. As the season (and my 9 month discount deal) has now finished I've just cancelled my sports pass, intending to resubscribe in March if there is a decent offer for next year. I was going to do the same with Boost, but was warned that I would lose my £3 per month "offer price" and would have to pay £5 per month if I resubscribed. If it's going to stay at £3 it will be cheaper to just leave it going.

[Mark_Weinreb]

@Ant42 If you want to keep your £3 Boost pass going, you’ll need one of the viewing passes, or your Boost pass will be cancelled.
After all, if you don’t have anything to watch there’s nothing to boost.

By viewing pass, I mean one or more of the following: Entertainment, Sports, Cinema or Hayu.

[RoyB · Accepted solution]

@Ant42 

If you only have F1, and you’ve cancelled it, then Boost will die when the Sports Pass dies.

Save up the £3/month you are no longer paying after that, and spring £5 of it for Boost when you next buy a Sports, or other, pass.

Then immediately start a Cancel on the Boost. You should get a retention offer for subsequent months, possibly £3, possibly better, possibly worse, but something at least.

Accept the retention offer instead of Cancelling. Even if it is worse than £3, those £3s you’ve been saving will keep you at better than break-even for a good while, going forward.

[Ant42]

Ah thanks, I didn't realise it would be cancelled automatically if I have no other active passes, I guess that makes sense. No point in paying for a pass I won't watch for the next three months just to get a £2 monthly discount on Boost, so I'll let it drop and look into what offers I can get next year.

Thanks both for the advice.

[Anonymous User]

I've had Boost for ages - when they announced the price increase I emailed them to say I thought £5 was too much to charge for HD footage when so many others offer 4K included.. I received an email saying I'd definitely stay on the £3 per month cost as I was an existing customer. Unfortunately, my Boost price went up to £5 so I emailed them to complain and was told that 6 months earlier (February 2021) when I had had an audio issue with NOW, one of their tech supports suggested I cancel my Boost pass and then re-subscribe to see if that helped fix the audio issue.. I had forgotten about that but apparently that meant that I wasn't eligible to stay on the £3 per month Boost cost as I had previously cancelled my subscription. I've been arguing it for months with them, mainly that I had done that because they asked me to and it was 5 months before they even announced the price increase, but I've got to the point with them now where they are just saying there's nothing they can do.. so I'll be cancelling as Boost isn't worth £5 per month. It's very annoying!!!!!!!!!

[gavs82008]

@Anonymous User 

Without boost your stuck with 1 stream, 720p, third part adverts as well as no 5.1 sound. To me it's worthwhile but shouldn't be required.

[Anonymous User]

I don't need multiple streams, we don't have surround sound and we don't watch all that much on NOW.. so £5 extra just to take it from 720p to 1080p isn't worth it in my opinion. £3 was just about ok.... 

[Ant42]

It appears my Boost hasn't been cancelled automatically after all. My cancelled sports pass has now expired and disappeared from my account, but Boost is still there - it's now the only thing on my account as I have no other passes. The payments section of the site shows I will still be charged £3 for another month of Boost on the 30th of this month.

So it makes sense to me to leave it in place for next year. If I cancel it and re-subscribe, £5 per month for the 9 month duration of the F1 season would cost me £45. Whereas £3 per month for 12 months, even though I don't actually need it for the first 3 months, will only cost me £36.

Unless they are planning on putting the price up for existing customers too?

[RoyB]

@Ant42 

We Community Contributors have been told that Boost dies when your last Membership (Pass) dies; to be precise, after your last Pass expires, Boost will expire on its next renewal date, instead of renewing. So it is possible, for something less than a month, to have a Boost and nothing else.

Which is pretty academic when there’s nothing to Boost, but it does make a difference if you start another Membership in that interim.

But if your Sports Membership has actually expired by now (and is not just Cancelled, and running out its last days to a date beyond the 30th), then the Boost should expire on the 30th, and not chargeably renew.

So there’s either something different here from what we’ve been told, or the Boost is going to expire on the 30th, and the information that it is going to renew is erroneous.

I will report this tomorrow for clarification. And if we don’t get this by the 30th, and you are happy, as above, for it to renew, please let us know on that date whether it does or not.

Maybe someone in Now management has done the same calculation you have, and realised that auto-cancelling Boost isn’t always to the customer’s advantage, and have decided that the default should be to let this Membership stand? 😛

[Ant42]

Thanks.

After my last post I asked NowTV support about this via the online chat. They assured me that the Boost subscription would not automatically cancel and that the price would remain at £3 per month indefinitely as a reward for existing customers. However, I'm aware that what NowTV support say can sometimes be less than accurate (which is why I tend to ask questions here first), so I was going to wait and see what happens on the 30th.

Right now my account is still showing that I'll be charged £3 on the 30th of December and I'm gambling on leaving it alone at the moment. I'll let you know what happens at the time.