Ending AOL contract early without penalty

I know the response is a bit late but seriously I just found a way (by accident I might add) to cancel an AOL account early without having to pay a fee!

So here is the background info:

I've been with AOL for a few of years now, I signed up to them when they had that "free" dell laptop deal, but for £24.99 it soon felt not very free after all. So with one month to go after 23 months of an extortionate price plan I couldn't wait for my contract to end, but AOL had other plans, they phoned me up and managed to convince me to stick with them by offering the same package but instead of paying £24.99 a month I would now only pay £6.99 a month, GREAT I thought, I just had to agree to a contract of another 12 months. Hey, if I can do 24 months 12 months should be a breeze. So I agreed to a new contract, I got the same great service (I've never really had any problems with AOL, just one or two disconnections but nothing major) for a fraction of what I was paying before, but after 6 months AOL called me up again and manged to get me to agree to join one of their new line rental packages (I had always been with BT) after being told that their new phone line would give up to 24 meg d/l speeds. Again I thought great, now here's where the trouble starts, a good fews days before the 'go live' date I experienced connection problems, AOL told me not to worry and that after the switch over my connection should be completely restored and better then ever. Then the 'go live' day arrives, do I have a broadband connection ermmmmm... no. After calling technical support and having my router switched on and off about 6 times I get told theres a problem in my area and to wait a few hours. Fine, I went to work came home and guess what, yes thats right no connection. The next morning I called back again asking technical support to please check my line, but no I had to reset my router at least 4 times before that option was even considered then when it was finally tested yes thats right there is a problem in your area please wait 4-5 hours. I thought ok its only been 24 hours maybe there is a massive fault give them time, even though when I was with BT they were knocking at my door literally 20 mins after hanging up the phone and within another 15 mins I was back online. But after three days of no broadband (which is like torture in our day and age) and at least 6-7 more patronising phone calls to AOL technical support I'd had enough. I was given 10 days to cancel and after 3 days I was ready to do so. So I call them up and say I've had enough of this crap cancel this new contract, they tell that theres a problem in my area and to please be patient, I tell them I don't care and to cancel it, CANCEL IT RIGHT NOW. They tell me to call whoever I want to be with and they will take over my service, so I call yes you've guessed it BT and go back to them. After ordering a new BT line it hits me what happens to my previous broadband package? So I give AOL a call and ask do I go back to the £6.99 contract I had before, they tell me that they themselves had cancelled the contract when I signed up for the new contract and now that I'm cancelling the new contract I effectively have no contract with AOL. Plus, because I'm ending my new contract during my 10 day cooling off period I don't have to pay any form of a cancellation fee what so ever!

There you have it I managed to get out of my 12 month contract 6 months early without having to pay a penny and all totally by accident, not bad really. I know it's a bit of a palaver but it got me out of the contract.

Hope this helps anyone trying to get out of a contract.