NRA Members may qualify for up to 60% off the price of hearing testing and hearing aids and components. They apparently only deal with Starkey Brand.
I have a call in to them to see if I was or am eligible for any kind of discount. This would have been good for me to know BEFORE I bought my aids!
When I checked this with someone in the know, I found that this sounds like a great deal, however, it is not particularly so.
Well you now have me curious. Why do you say that?
I am betting it is because the discount is off the full MSRP of the aids, which like all medical equipment is set so high that no one ever pays that amount.
My Phonak Smart S IX had an MSRP that was billed to my insurance company of about $6500. I walked out of the Audi with the HA, iCom, MyPilot, 5 year extended warranty, and custom ear mold for under $4500, and that was still too much since my insurance would cover anything less than $5000 so I did not even try to find deals or discounts.
Older models, base models, or anything that was not released in the last 3 months will often have an even better “discount” than the one I got from the Audi without even asking.
Yes, I had called them, it is against the MSRP which really means NOTHING. Just buy a new car and see what the MSRP means.
I happened to be on a site and saw an ad to call about some NRA Benefits Program if you are a member, and that is what I did!
Too bad it is not all it is made out to be.
LOL. Yep, and their “invoice” pricing is better but still a big joke. Ask them to show you the invoice that includes the “holdback” amount instead. That holdback is a % of the real cost that the automakers send back to the dealers at a future point. It was put into the invoice price as a way to get banks to lend higher amounts on the vehicle since their calculations are based off invoice, and it also allows them to show buyers a piece of paper that makes it look like the dealership is giving them a great deal since they are not making a penny on the sale. It can be hard to get them to admit any of this or deal straight up, but I normally start my dealing with the invoice price and go down from there.
On top of that many dealers get a couple of points back from the banks for sending the financing their way. The whole process is a scam hidden behind so many shadows that it can take months after a sale for the dealership to have everything settled with all the money that moves around to actually know exactly what they made on a specific sale. Their financing when they bought the car, the dealer “floorplan”, the kickback… sorry, I mean holdback, the bank deals, the volume discounts, and the employee bonuses if they moved 1 car or 50 that month. Just know this, at no time will you ever leave a car dealership, new or used, where they did not make enough money to cover all their costs and still take home 3-5% pure profit at the very minimum. Much more than that if you did not deal well enough, and even more when they sale or auction your trade for way more than they really gave you for it after they ignore the totally worthless numbers written on all the paperwork.
At least most Audis will tell you the MSRP and their selling price up front. None of them are getting super rich.