Anonymous wrote:Reviving.

I am in rematch and I am picking up an extension candidate instead.

They are charging me the full fees.

Has anyone gotten any discounts on this? Negotiated the fees at all.

If it matters, I am with CC.

thanks.

Nope. Last year I got an extension AP as well, and CC wouldn't lower the fee, and I tried negotiating with several different people there. They treated it as a new AP, which is crap, because they don't have to do the background check, apply for visa, pay for international airfare over here. If you extend with your AP, you pay $6400, but if you get someone else's extension AP, you pay $8500. That's BS.
Also, they charge you from the day your AP's prior year ends, whether you need her right away or not. So for instance, my AP ended 3/22, and new AP came on 3/15, but she finished with her old family on 3/5. So CC started charging me on 3/5, even though AP wasn't here yet. CC doesn't tell you this, they just bill you.

Make sure you at least get the repeat family and early match discounts.

Anonymous wrote:Reviving.

I am in rematch and I am picking up an extension candidate instead.

They are charging me the full fees.

Has anyone gotten any discounts on this? Negotiated the fees at all.

If it matters, I am with CC.

thanks.

Switched from CC to APIA and aside from early matching discounts, I wasn't able to get them to lower the fee at all this year.

Reviving.

I am in rematch and I am picking up an extension candidate instead.

They are charging me the full fees.

Has anyone gotten any discounts on this? Negotiated the fees at all.

If it matters, I am with CC.

thanks.

How long does it take for an AP to switch agencies? we need to match soon for a mid-August arrival date.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We like an au pair with APIA and want to make an offer soon.

Any chance to get the AP to switch? Depending on where she is from there might be very little cost associated with her switching.

Another option is to pay the AP the difference and have her switch. We had a large credit one year with CCAP so we paid the fees for an AP we found on GAP to switch to CCAP. She did so and was very happy during her year with CCAP.

Anonymous wrote:We like an au pair with APIA and want to make an offer soon.

Any chance to get the AP to switch? Depending on where she is from there might be very little cost associated with her switching.

APIA just offered me 500 off and then 150 off the program fee. So a total of $650. Has anyone recently gotten more off for switching agencies to APIA? Just curious if I have more negotiating/arguing wiggle room to try.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With Interexchange and contemplating going with APIA. Has anyone negotiated more than the match fee ($425). The program fee is about $2000 more with APIA. Just curious what to ask for. We like an au pair with APIA and want to make an offer soon.

Most agencies have a switching discount as long as the new AP would be with you for at least 30 weeks or so. We moved from APC to CCAP and got $1500 discount. Everytime that we are ready for a new AP, I open myself up to multiple agencies and call them for their switching discount information and search for the best AP for us. Ended up with CCAP for the 3rd year in a row.. but who knows about next year

I agree--I look at more than one agency each year at matching time. But I learned this year after switching back to CCAP after matching with APIA that they will only give you the switching discount once (I got it when I switched from APC in the past). That was annoying because they would let me have the "repeat family" discount, but not the early match discount because I was switching from another agency.

And last year CCAP fees were several hundred less than APIA. This year, both have the same program fees. Feels a little like collusion. Guards against the kinds of negotiating we are talking about here. And yes, we did get APIA to match the CCAP fees when we switched to them last year.

Anonymous wrote:With Interexchange and contemplating going with APIA. Has anyone negotiated more than the match fee ($425). The program fee is about $2000 more with APIA. Just curious what to ask for. We like an au pair with APIA and want to make an offer soon.

Most agencies have a switching discount as long as the new AP would be with you for at least 30 weeks or so. We moved from APC to CCAP and got $1500 discount. Everytime that we are ready for a new AP, I open myself up to multiple agencies and call them for their switching discount information and search for the best AP for us. Ended up with CCAP for the 3rd year in a row.. but who knows about next year

Anonymous wrote:With Interexchange and contemplating going with APIA. Has anyone negotiated more than the match fee ($425). The program fee is about $2000 more with APIA. Just curious what to ask for. We like an au pair with APIA and want to make an offer soon.

Yes, we negotiated them down about 800 to get closer to CCAP, but this was four years ago so could be different.