NOTE: This technical article was published long time ago. It may be not up to date. Please check for the newest versions of mentioned software. Also I am not able to provide technical support anymore. Thank you for your understanding.
CrashPlan is pretty amazing backup solution – it provides multiple backup solutions for your personal data, including unlimited cloud storage, backup to friends or local devices and other. They charge $59.99 annually for unlimited plan (1 computer). Frequently (like, all the time) they offer large discounts (20% and more) for new users. However, they forget about existing users – if you want to extend your subscription, you need to pay full amount. When I asked them about that, they told me, that it is a technical difficulty to sort this out in their billing system.
I think it’s unfair for existing customers, who refer the service to their friends and families (i.e. I referred them to at least 4 or 5 paying customers). I found a way to extend your account with the discount in a couple of easy steps:
- Log into your CrashPlan account on their website.
- Find your subscription, cancel it. They will warn you, that all data will be deleted. What they won’t tell you is that they will not do it immediately – your data is still there for a couple of hours.
- At this moment go to the discount offer page (look at their website or facebook page), while still logged in.
- Buy the discounted subscription. You will receive new license key.
- In the CrashPlan application delete old license key and paste the new one.
- Enjoy your extended subscription at the discounted price 🙂
Note: this method is valid as of November 1, 2013.
Note2: I tried to use this method recently (November 1, 2015) and it doesn’t seem to be working anymore. If you were successful – please let me know!