Ordinary Gweilo

Someone please slap me around the face, will you? I think I’m about to something a bit daft.

The problem is that I have lost my access to SCMP.com and I am therefore considering the rather radical step of actually paying for it.

As luck would have it, the SCMP have written to me suggesting that I subscribe to their fine newspaper. They say that they are offering me 40% off a subscription to both the newspaper and the website.

Er, not quite. By my calculation, it would cost HK$2593 to buy the SCMP every day, and their offer is HK$1798, which is about 30% off. The difference seems to be HK$399, which is what they charge for a web-only subscription, and they have added that on to arrive at an “original price” of HK$2,992. That’s a bit naughty because if you subscribe to the newspaper this always includes access to the website, so you can’t count it twice.

In fact, their “normal” price seems to be HK$2168 for a 7-day subscription, so in reality they are only knocking off HK$370 with this “special” offer. There’s more special SCMP maths here, because here they calculate the full price of buying the paper every day as as HK$2693, so it looks as if you are getting a 20% discount when it’s actually 17%.  I’ve no idea where the extra HK$100 comes from. 

Anyway, the question here is whether I should wait for the “new” SCMP.com which may (just possibly) have some of the content available free of charge.