Avoid Registrar Checkout Traps: When Is A Coupon Not A Coupon?

When it comes to managing a large portfolio you really need to cut down on maintenance tasks. For that reason I usually renew my domains across multiple years. I also try to have a bunch of them renewing at the same time.

It’s Friday night and what am I doing? Renewing a few names of course! The price for switching a .info to Namecheap is $9.69. If you use the “switch2nc” coupon it comes down to $6.99 for 1 year.

You can see that it clearly says 1 year and the coupon code has been accepted (little box on the left hand side). Here is what happened when I selected 2 years:

The coupon is still there, but it doesn’t apply. In fact, it doesn’t even give you the $6.99 discounted rate for the first year! This isn’t news to the more experienced users, but its something I want to make people aware of. If you are up late (like I am) you may just miss/overlook basic maths at 1am.

While I can accept that a coupon is usually for 1 year and the reason coupons exist, is to get you to move your portfolio (or get you to buy other services), after all they are not making huge $$$ on this. My point is, why wouldn’t a registrar apply the coupon for multiple years or at least (at a minimum) give it to you for the first year?

Have you seen this type of activity anywhere else? If so, please post a comment and let me know.