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Sirius XM Weather Pricing - Really?

Noah

Well Known Member
For those hanging on to their XM weather receivers until they do their mandatory ADS-B upgrades in the not too distant future, you might be interested in this. I have had a subscription to Aviator Light for $35/month for 3 years, and recently learned that XM is offering a "Pilot Express" package for the same price as the "Aviator Light", but it includes all of the additional, coveted weather products previously only availble in the "Aviator" package at $55/month. That is to say, you get these additional features for the same price of $35/mo: AIRMETS, SIGMETS, PIREPS, Lighning Strikes, Surface map with Isobars and surface features, Winds/Temps Aloft, Weather Watch Boxes, and Forecast Winds:
http://www.xmwxweather.com/aviation/data-service-pricing.php
http://www.siriusxm.com/sxmaviation/features

I called XM and asked how I can get the much better "Pilot Express" package with all of these additional features for their advertised price of $35/mo, the same price I have already been paying for 3 years. What? They will not sell it to me, because I have hardware that is incompatible with the "Pilot Express" package? Really?

Now it seems to me, that if XM is selling the same bundle of weather products and calling it "Pilot Express" in one case and "Aviator" in another, that they should be charging pretty much the same price, since the weather products are pretty much identical. I don't understand how XM justifies the need to spend an extra $20/month, just because I have different receiver hardware. It doesn't cost XM any more money ; they are already broadcasting the weather products but they're charging different prices to different users just because they have different receivers. That makes no sense.

If you agree, call XM and tell them you want the "Aviator" package, with the same weather products as the "Pilot Express" package, for the $37/mo price of the "Pilot Express" package. Perhaps if enough people call them to complain about this inequity, we can get them to change their misguided pricing and marketing policy.

Sirius XM doesn't seem to get it. They are dinosaurs selling buggy whips who should be doing everything they can to hang on to the shrinking customer base that they have, not accelerating their own demise by annoying their customers and charging some customers more money for the same products.
 
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Unfortunately this seems to be typical among many subscriber industries. New customers are gold, and existing customers, well, might as well not exist. Cable, phone, mobile phone, internet, satellite TV, pretty much all the same.

Pay one time for a hardware box that does almost the same thing with no recurring costs, and forget about it.
 
I agree, and not too long ago replaced my xm with an ADSB-in box for $500. It will pay for itself in 18 months.

xm is still a little bit better - you can usually get it on the ground - but I can usually get wx on the ground from my iPad. So I dumped it. If someone wants my weatherworx box (USB output) I'll pull it out of the plane and sell it, cheap. Personally I wouldn't pay the cost to ship it.

I think xm has decided their only market is selling the full up version to the corporate guys, for whom $55/month means nothing.

OTOH, I do have an xm (music) subscription for about $12/month, which I'll keep. The radio is a portable in the car; when I fly I take it with me (I bought a car kit for the plane) and plug it into the plane, where it works flawlessly.
 
I think xm has decided their only market is selling the full up version to the corporate guys, for whom $55/month means nothing.

I dunno, they are a broadcaster, just like an FM radio station is a broadcaster. It doesn't cost them any differently to broadcast to 1 subscriber or one million - their broadcasting costs are fixed. I would think they would want to hang on to all of the subscribers they can, to increase their revenue.
 
I dunno, they are a broadcaster, just like an FM radio station is a broadcaster. It doesn't cost them any differently to broadcast to 1 subscriber or one million - their broadcasting costs are fixed. I would think they would want to hang on to all of the subscribers they can, to increase their revenue.

I agree that's what I would do. But I'm not running the company, and that's certainly not what they are doing. (If they lowered aviator light cost to $10/month I'd keep it without hesitation).
 
OTOH, I do have an xm (music) subscription for about $12/month, which I'll keep. The radio is a portable in the car; when I fly I take it with me (I bought a car kit for the plane) and plug it into the plane, where it works flawlessly.

I use my phone bluetoothed, is that a word.?.. to my audio panel and get all the music and podcasts on my phone for nada..

just another avenue.
 
I'm dumping XM

I kept XM even after buying the stratus 2 a few months ago. I wanted to do a side by side comparison, and I've decided that the ADS B weather is plenty good, and better in some cases (more frequent local weather updates). I thought Serius XM might make an overture to us "loyal" subscribers, but I'm not counting on it. I'm keeping the music, but goodbye to XM weather.
 
Sirius

XM is still providing less coverage with Aviator Liite (which does not even show up on their website) than for Pilot Express. ADSB vendors love it. After we have all switched to ADSB, XM will probably be scratching their head and wondering what happened.
 
I just called and confirmed that my G3X is not capable of the new packages. I suspect they are eliminating one set of satellites, probably the xm, so you have to be able to receive the Sirius sats to subscribe to the new package.
That still doesn't answer why they won't upgrade existing subscribers to the aviator package. I am letting mine expire at next renewal
 
One of my buddies was asking me if I knew why XM had outages recently... Their NEXRAD is demonstrably better the ads-b NEXRAD, IMHO.

With all the subscription costs, nowadays you can get the $100 hamburger without ever going to the airport...
 
So I stopped by the XM WX booth at SNF to understand the new pricing. Here is the lame explanation. The new packages are being delivered via the Sirius sats and using WSI as the weather product provider. They stated they negotiated a better deal with WSI and that the Xm sats are still tied to Baron Services as the weather provider along with the current pricing structure dictated by their current contract with same. They didn't seem to care too much about the aviation crowd they said more of their subscriptions come from the marine and land based platforms.
 
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