This tip can save you some cash! When you’re pursuing certifications, the exams can get a little expensive. Most likely you can just go to the Prometric or Pearson Vue website and schedule a test through their website for your certification. At this point, you would have to pay the retail price. Instead of that, I would encourage you to look into vouchers for your exams.
In short, you purchase a voucher from another company for a lower price and when you’re scheduling your exam through Prometric or Pearson Vue, you use the voucher instead of the normal means of payment. Vouchers are discounted and sold in bulk to these companies, so they pass the savings on to you.
An example from the last certification exam I scheduled, A+, which consists of two exams.
Normal, retail price for the two tests at $168 each:$336
Price of a voucher for two tests: $292
A savings of: $44
The downsides
Vouchers have expiration dates. You need to use them and schedule your exam by the voucher expiration date. Prices may get cheaper as the expiration date approaches. If the expiration date scares you too much, just wait until the time gets closer to when you’re ready to take the exam. You would then be able to use a soon-to-expire voucher easily within the timeframe. Alternatively, you can shop around a little bit and find a different company with different expiration dates. I bought my last voucher with almost a year before they expired.
There are plenty of companies out there who will easily sell you a voucher for a discount price, so just do a quick look around to find one that works for you.
I used Grace Tech Solutions last time and was pleased with the simplicity of it all. They had the greatest discount I could find and the expiration date had just rolled over so I had about a year to complete the test. I was able to order through Paypal and had no problems with the voucher at the Prometric site when scheduling the exam. You often will also get some bonus content. I received, for A+, two PDFs with related material. One was a technical term glossary and the other was a network diagram.
To summarize this simple tip: Use vouchers for certifications. You’ll save money and likely get some other resources out of it.