I'm jumping ship to Cubase but am still on X3 (never saw need to go to Platinum) but have been told that the decent Cubase 9.5 Pro crossgrade offer only applies to Sonar Platinum and Pro. Surely there's some way to very cheaply upgrade Sonar then get the whopping crossgrade discount?....Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Have you tried getting a price from the Steinberg site? I think the offer ended on Jan 17th.

The offer is still floating around retailers but they have said it's only for Platinum or it's another £250 to get the full Cubase Pro 9.5. Annoying I might have have got the upgrade cheap in the last days maybe... 

It would be a new SONAR purchase. The upgrade path for X3 was discontinued May 1, 2017. IIRC, there was one promo after that date for X3 users that missed the original upgrade window.

You keep old versions to long they are devalued as trade ins. As Scook has said, you chose to miss the opportunities that were offered to you so there you are, the ship has sailed.  
 
 
 

For the life of me, I can't figure out why Steinberg does not extend this offewr to older Sonar users. Not doing so means many will simply buy another DAW. Not very smart business IMO.

michael diemer
For the life of me, I can't figure out why Steinberg does not extend this offewr to older Sonar users. Not doing so means many will simply buy another DAW. Not very smart business IMO.

Perhaps the reasoning is if someone couldn't be arsed to keep up to date with the DAW of their choice why should they jump to the top of the tree of someone elses product with a large discount? Plus there are Cubase users who also have to pay for upgrades - not fun to see others coming in and getting the goodies at bargain prices.
(Fortunately I jumped at the right time and am now enjoying Cubase (after a bit of a messy start)).

Grum.

Exactly, I can upgrade from Cubase Elements 7. but with each year that goes by, my discount is reduced. This is standard practice with most software. If you like the software it is always in your best interest to follow the upgrades and buy when on sale.  Cakewalk has been overly generous over the last few years and anybody paying attention will have probably ended up with the last version for pretty near half price. 
 
And to answer this
"For the life of me, I can't figure out why Steinberg does not extend this offewr to older Sonar users. Not doing so means many will simply buy another DAW. Not very smart business IMO." 
 
Why would someone choose a DAW based on price only?? That's absurd. Everybody tries the demo's and then decides which DAW they like best. Price might be a factor for a few but Cubase is a high quality mature DAW and it's price reflects that placement in the market.  That market already has a large user base. Why would they choose to devalue it just to grab a handful of ex Sonar users? 
Discounts only are used when a company is desperate for business, I don't think Steinberg is suffering, Possibly it is because they are good business managers that they are where they are right now.  
 
Most of us just stayed with Sonar because there seems no reason to spend $100-$300 when we have a working DAW that meets our requirements still. All these other DAW's are always on sale at some time or another there is no reason to panic about purchasing a new DAW.  
 

Good points Grumbleweed and Cactus, but on the other hand, considering what just happened to Cakewalk, perhaps it might be a good idea to be overly generous. This may be a gradually shrinking market, with only a few left standing at the end. Why not pad the coffers a bit?
 
As for people grumbling about not getting the same deal as the Johnny-come-latelies, I believe there was a story long ago about this, concerning people getting hired at the eleventh hour, but receiving the same pay as those who worked all day. I think the teller of this story made a good point. And his "company" is still around.

Some good points there. I didn't upgrade to Platinum because I didn't see anything there I needed and actually ended up going back from X3 to X2 for all my work as I found the changes in look and some 'improvements' drove me mad. 
 
Yeah, price didn't really come into the decision about which DAW to go with. I make music for a living and it's a long term commitment. I could have gotten Studio One Pro V3 very cheaply but just didn't get on with it compared to Cubase. But having decided to go with Cubase I'm just a bit miffed that I'm paying full price and have to deal with dongle issues. I run 2 DAW's (studio and home) so have to either buy 2 licenses or take the dongle with me between the two locations every single day. Nice!