How to get the $156 Adobe Black Friday discount, even for existing subscribers

Adobe has a great sale for Black Friday. They are selling their all-apps subscription that usually costs around $52.99/month for only $39.99/month. No doubt that this is a great bargain, but there is a caveat. This deal is only available to new customers. If you are already an Adobe customer, you would have to keep paying your usual $52.99.

There is a way around this though, that lets you get the new price. But first, a word about newcomers get a discount sales. If you don’t care about that, just jump to the end of the post.

The model is broken

From a customer side, I love that Adobe is doing sales every once in a while. I think that it helps Adobe grow. And Adobe growing means more features, better service, and improved software quality (= Less bugs. hopefully). so yea, I am all for sales.

What is hard for me to understand is what Adobe limits those sales to new customers only. It would make far more sense to encourage your loyal customer base and make them happy. Even if you don’t provide the full 25% discount, sending a signal to the current customer base that says “we care” would go a long way. At least for me. (From Adobe’s perspective, it is probably cheaper to keep their customers rather than acquiring new ones, but I trust Adobe knows what they are doing business-wise).

You can always start a new account with a new email, but that’s just too much work.

If you don’t ask, you won’t get

Adobe is rightfully targeting me with their ads. I got an ad (and an email) encouraging me to buy a discount subscription so I went ahead and clicked the buy link. When I read the deal, I realized that this would be a new subscription and not 12 months added to my current subscription, so I could not use it. I was bummed. Why would Adobe tease me to such a great deal and then let me know that I can’t have it?

It turns out that current subscribers can have this deal as well, all they have to do is ask.

My chat with Adobe Customer Service

I love Adobe’s customer service. I am not being cynical here. Whenever I turned to them for help they were always kind and efficient. They don’t even insist on using those annoying bots. If the bot doesn’t get you, they immediately transfer you to a human. I love it. This time was no different. I asked about the Black Friday deal and was immediately treated with “usually it’s for newcomers, but let me see what I can do. And within a few seconds, the agent suggested to enroll me into the Black Friday Special. It took a few more lines of communications and it was done. Including the “rate this Customer Care experience” email.

This is quite a bit of saving

In the end, I am satisfied with the service I got. Adobe sent me a mail about a discount and followed through. I wish every transaction with every company was as smooth.

Looking at the discount from a saving perspective it was well worth the effort. The “regular price” is $53.99/month and the discount is for $13/month. In a yearly calculation, this is just about $150 and some change. Money that can be better used towards saving an initial Sony A7SIII payment.

So, if you want to take advantage of the deal, head on over to Adobe’s website and chat to somebody.