Transferring Traffic Subscription between iPhones

[heskech]

Does anyone know TomTom's official policy on transferring a traffic subscription between iPhone devices? I have been transferring my subscription between two phones and today when I went to do that, I received a message that I could not transfer. So I called TomTom technical support and they say you may not transfer subscriptions between devices. Is this a policy change?

 

[daveoftruro]

At a guess, I would suggest they've realised that rather than simply replacing one iPhone with another, you are using the transfer facility as a way of evading paying two traffic subscriptions.

I have some sympathy with TT in this, particulary as, if others started doing the same thing, it would make it much harder for people who genuinely upgrade their phones to transfer their subscription.

 

[heskech]

I own two iPhones for my use and transferred the traffic subscription between the two from time-to-time. I'm not sure how my use case is much different than sharing a software license between my desktop computer and my laptop computer where the software restricts you from running two instances. I only ever can run one instance of TomTom Traffic, so why would TomTom limit the number of transfers?

TomTom's policy of restricting how many times a license can be transferred between iPhones strikes me as greedy.

 

[daveoftruro]

Changing subscriptions from one phone to another is going to be far more labour intensive than the totally automated process of selling a traffic subscription. I guess it's something TT have been doing free of charge partly out of good will and partly because of the low number of people requesting it.

Then you come along and start costing them more in manpower than they'll make from your traffic subscription in a year, and they decide that enough is enough. That's not being greedy, simply protecting their business from being rooked.

There is a monthly subscription (there used to be a daily one but I can't see it now). You could subscribe to one of those from each TT as you need it.

 

[heskech]

Unless I'm misunderstanding, TomTom have completely automated the process of transferring a traffic subscription from one iPhone to another.

To transfer an account, I tap restore purchases, fill in my account information, I'm be presented with a message box warning me the subscription is assigned to another device, and then I tap another button to transfer it. I don't think there's any human intervention from anyone at TomTom. So unless I'm wrong on how the process works, I fail to see how it costs TomTom anything.

 

[daveoftruro]

I guess then that it just comes down to them feeling you're defrauding them out of a traffic subscription. I seem to remember when I started mine, it was made quite clear that it was for use on one TT only. When someone upgrades their TT, it's for goodwill that they permit them to swap the subscription to the new TT.

The problem is that if lots of people start doing the same as you, TT will start making an administrative charge for the change. All users will suffer because a few are trying to get traffic subscriptions for 2 TTs for the price of one.