Let's Regroup

First, a yearly housekeeping note. The "this is Robert's full time job now" version of IlliniBoard launched six years ago tomorrow. So for many longtime supporters, your subscription renewal date is coming up soon. Renewals are easy here: if you want to renew, just do nothing and your card on file will be charged for another year.

The yearly reminder: every year, about 20% of subscribers have a credit card that expires. And the auto-renew process doesn't work with expired credit cards. You'll get an email saying "your card on file is expired" (with a few weeks to renew), but if you don't see the email, that means you'll simply wake up one day a few weeks later to find that your renewal never processed and your subscription was canceled.

If you do intend to renew, it's very helpful to me (it saves me literally hundreds of emails) if you just go to your account right now and make sure your card is current. The way to do that: click on the orange "Account" box in the upper right-hand corner (if you're on your phone, you might need to turn your phone sideways to see "Account"). One the next screen, click the "Update" button next to "Billing Info" and it will take you to the page with your current billing info. That lists the card and the expiration date. If you have an updated card number or expiration date, you can just update it there. Click out of that page (there's a "return to IlliniBoard" page) and you're all set.

Sorry to bother you with this, but trust me, these three paragraphs every year save me hours and hours of emails. I'd have to send you an email saying "hey, if you didn't see, your subscription cancels next week because the auto-renew has failed twice now" and then you'd miss that email and your subscription would cancel and you'd send me an email saying "Robert, did you delete my subscription?" and I'd respond with "your card was expired so the renewal couldn't go through" and you'd be all "so I guess I deleted myself" and then I'd say something like "my mom told me that I should never delete myself" and we'd have a good laugh.

If you do plan to renew, thank you for your support. Make sure those cards are current and then you won't miss a thing around here. You know, stuff like...