Frequently Asked Questions
When does the sale run? November 1-30, 2019.
What forms of payment can I use? During our annual sale, we only accept credit card payments, not POs, checks, IOUs, or wires. This keeps our handling costs down and lets us do these deep discounts. If you can only pay via those other methods, you’re welcome to buy at our regular prices after the sale ends on November 30th, or email us and we can send you a full price invoice now.
How do I buy for someone else? The billing email address needs to be the email address of the person who will be getting the training. The buyer can use their own name/address/etc, but the email address absolutely has to be the person who’s gonna attend the classes. If you’re worried about getting the receipt, don’t worry – it’s shown to you during the checkout process, and you just need to print/PDF it then. If you accidentally used the wrong email address or account info during checkout, email us at help@brentozar.com with the receipt and the student’s email address.
Will I be charged a renewal fee? Yes, This is a subscription, but you can cancel whenever you like without talking to a human being. After logging in, go to My Subscriptions, and you can cancel your subscriptions, but keep using them up til the next billing cycle. Just click Cancel once, and it’ll show “Pending Cancelation” – that means you won’t be billed again. (If you click Cancel twice, you can outright cancel it period and it stops your access immediately. You probably don’t wanna do that.)
Can I buy from the European Union or EEA? No, no sales to the EU due to the GDPR, sorry. I’d really hoped to get that in place for this year’s sale, but we couldn’t quite get there. It’s like Brexit: it’s a lot trickier than it looks. (Too soon? Probably too soon.)
Can I upgrade an existing subscription? If you’re replacing an existing subscription, go into your subscriptions after you buy, and cancel the ones you no longer want. For example, if you had a previous Recorded Class Season Pass standalone subscription that would have renewed soon, you’ll want to cancel that (since you get the same stuff in these new bundles above.) With these deep, deep, deep discounts, we can’t tie these to your existing subscriptions – so no, if you have 3 months left on another subscription, that’s just going to get lost in the shuffle. (I lost sleep on that trying to get it to work, but it’s just too complex given that you can have just 1 of several products.)
How do I register for live classes?
Once your BrentOzar.com account has the Live Class Season Pass membership, you can register for the included classes for free. (If someone else bought the membership for you – like if the buyer’s email doesn’t match the student’s email – we have a little bit of manual work to do behind the scenes to set up your account.)
After you buy Level 2 or Level 3, and you want to register for upcoming live classes, go to the list of eligible classes, add the class/date you want to your cart, and check out at least 2 days before the class starts. If you see anything about putting in a credit card, STOP, and make sure you’re logged in with the student’s account. No money should be changing hands here. Well, unless you wanna tip us, but in that case we’d suggest tequila, or large t-shirts from your place of employment.
Cheating is a bad idea. If you try to register someone else, we will catch you when we audit the list the night before class, and we’ll have to send you a really sad email. (Trust me, I have to do this a few times a year. It’s stunning that people think they can still get away with that in the age of databases, but whatever.)
You can also start watching Instant Replay recordings right away by clicking Training at the top of the site. You’re absolutely welcome to start watching the videos before your class – it can help you get up to speed early, and help you re-absorb the material better during the live class, and ask better questions, too.
There are plenty of seats for Season Pass holders – don’t worry about registering ahead of time if you’re not sure if you’ll be in a class. The Season Pass gets you free entry into each class up to 2 times. (You can even attend a class more times than that, but then there’s a $100 fee to cover your VM.) Don’t panic and try to register for every class – there’s plenty of space for you, and once set, you don’t get a refund if you have to switch dates. (I have to rent your VMs in advance for dates, so if you don’t show up for a class, it doesn’t really matter – that money is gone.) When in doubt, wait it out – you can always register the week before a class. If it looks like a class is sold out, just shoot us an email and we’ll add a spot for you.
I would recommend doing the Mastering Indexes class first, then Mastering Query Tuning, then finally Mastering Server Tuning. That’s why I run the classes in that order, too – they alternate months 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3. If you have to take ’em out of order, that’s okay – it’s just that in the Query Tuning class, I’m going to assume that you’ve already mastered the index tuning portion, so there will be some parts of the class that won’t make as much sense.
Got a question that isn’t answered here? Email me, but be patient – things get pretty hectic around here during November, so it may take a day to get a reply. See you in class!
