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[MSE Jenny]

There are scores of MoneySaving techniques that involve fighting back and threatening to leave to grab better deals. You can Batter Down Your Mobile phone contract, slash interest with the Credit Card Shuffle and haggle down your Home Insurance.

So I want to find out what other secret special deals companies will offer in a bid to cling on to your custom. Please let us know the best deals you’ve managed to bag by threatening to leave a company, be it free Sky channels, free contact lense supplys, or free cashback.

Please post below to share your best blags.

For a full guide to haggling, read the High Street Haggle article.

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[fmhm]

we threatened to leave Virgin Media for Sky, we were actually serious though!
Anyhow, bombarded with phone calls begging us to stay (once we'd given notice) and then offered a rather nice deal consisting of the following:
free v+ box, upgrade to XL tv package, upgrade to Lrg telephone package all for £30 for the first 6 months and then £35 for the remaining 6 months.

[ey143]

I've had my £25 monthly fee waived twice now at Lloyds TSB. The first fee waiver was for 6 months, and as that was coming to an end, I was going to move to another bank and they offered me a final six months.

That said, I have a very high credit rating rating as I'm fortunate to have a high income go into the account. The benefits of the account are plentiful, free mobile phone insurance (which recently paid £300 for my damaged PDA phone), home emergency cover, worldwide travel insurance for the family, platinum cover AA, Sentinal card cover, identity theft protection, interest free overdraft up to £500 and a few others which I forget now.

If you want good deals in life, you need to have a clean credit file and keep your payments up to date.

[ey143]

Oh one more thing, I also get 5% (yes 5%) cash back on up to £50 per months for 6 months my platinum Barclaycard Mastercard and on my visa after I was going to close my 11 year credit card account with them. Again, I have a very high credit rating with them.

[pkempc]

Hi Martin & team,

I have posted this tip before but its worth another mention.

I needed to get my Toyota Yaris D4D its 60,000 mile service done so I went to Toyota UK website for a list of main dealers within approx 50 miles. Emailed all of them asking for a quote for the service and a courtesy car. Only two bothered to reply quickly - my local dealer @ £250 and one 35 miles away @ £203 (Yaris does 55 mpg so factor in about £ 5 extra for the fuel). Waited a week for any more replies - nothing. Was just about to go ahead and book with cheapest quote when my local dealer phoned me to ask if their (more expensive) price was ok and did I want to confirm booking?!?! I said no thanks I had a much cheaper quote from rival dealership - brief pause - okay we'll beat their price by a £1. Result!

Okay I know there are other independent garages that can do the same job for much, much less and Nationwide accept Tesco 4x deals, etc. However, Toyota have always provided a first class product with superb after care and I have received excellent service from their dealers plus a £ 50 saving means I'm happy to stay loyal - this time!

[Mike P]

I changed my house (buildings & contents) insurance from my mortgage provider to Direct Line 3 years ago, saving about £15 per month at the time. However, the monthly premium has been going up steadily from an initial £25/mth to £39.37 due from March 2008. This included a 10% no claims bonus for being a "loyal customer". I shopped around online, including Direct Line as a new customer and also Tesco (both are RBS companies and the websites are remarkably similar!). Amazingly, as a NEW customer with Direct Line, I found I could get HIGHER contents cover for just £20.74/mth and the Tesco website quoted me the same cover for £18.29/mth. I rang Direct Line and told them I wasn't going to renew and would be taking up the Tesco quote through their own RBS parent company. They very politely offered to keep my existing cover for the Tesco premium and also increase the contents cover to that in the Tesco quote. I have paid the premium in one lump sum, reducing the average monthly cost to just £16.63, a saving of nearly 58% against the original quote. I also paid using my Tesco credit card, earning Bonus Points to boot!

[NicolaC]

T-mobile.

Threatened to leave (and meant it). Was both on the Flex 35 plan.
Got free upgrades on mine and hubbies phones. Our same price plan with £5 discount a month each, plus free evening and weekend calls which means we now never reach our tarrif limits.

[moonshadow]

I planned to leave Lovefilm. They asked me to phone to cancel and asked why I ws leaving. I told them it was because I was not getting the priority films - the ones I wanted most. They gave me a free month to 'give them another chance'. Got a good selection that free month!

[Bechet45]

Sky are great for offering generous deals at the threat of leaving! I complain and threaten to leave regularly - say, three times every couple of years - and several of my family and friends do the same now, and always they offer a substantial incentive to stay with them.

Seems that the larger one's package, the more generous they are.

The trick is not to threaten to leave until you are talking to someone from their Customer Retention Dept - a department the existence of which they strongly deny - whose members have great discretionary powers to offer what it takes to keep your custom. Contract Termination Dept might get you to the right people. You'll know immediately when you get to the right person because the mood changes - they know how to listen!

You must say the magic words, "I want to cancel my contract".They will ask you why to which I usually reply that I'm angry that a new customer only deal is not available to me, a long term, loyal customer blah blah. They then put the ball back in my court by asking what would it take to keep my custom and I open by asking for my entire package free for a year.

I failed to get a free HD box from them but then, that never was on offer. Six months at half price for your TV package can be considered a minimum.

[Robotrob]

I threatened to leave T-Mobile and they offered me a deal. I now pay a monthly fee of £7, I get 50 free texts and 750 free minutes. Although the allowances may not seem that great every April I'm offered a free upgrade and this April will get my monthly fee reduced to £2.

[Pound]

Best deal I bagged was when I tried to cancel my O2 mobile phone contract. I'd taken it abroad and ran up about £120 of bills over 6 weeks (this might have helped get the deal).

I phoned up to cancel it later and they said I could reduce to their lowest package, IIRC was £10 a month. I accepted.

A month I decided I wasn't making that many calls and would be cheaper on PAYG so I called up to cancel again. They then offered me an amazing deal, same free minutes and texts with a £0 monthly charge! The offer lasted for 12 months, after then it went back up to £10 where I could cancel.

I think it helped that I was already only the lowest advertised tarrif and I had a history of going a stupid amount over my free minutes so it may have seemed like a sensible move to keep me.

[welsh_cake]

I threatened to leave Orange and they let me choose whatever phone I wanted, 500 minutes and 300 txts and keep my 4 magic numbers for £10.00 a month - I was paying nearly £40.00 on the last contract.

[skintbutsmiling01]

I got free sky plus by threatening to leave, I was in the right though- they sent my new dd details to my old address, 3 months after they'd fitted sky to my new address!!

[JasonLVC]

Got car insurance renewal from ELEPHANT.COM and I rang them up said it was too dear. They asked what my lowest quote was so far so I simply knocked £100 off their renewal quote, told them I could get it £100 cheaper and they took £150 off. Insurance is now LESS than it was last year.

However, tried to get better mortgage rate from INGDirect last week and they said they don't do deals and they look forward to transferring my mortgage . So moving over to HSBS in next few weeks.

If they cut a deal fair play, stick with them. If they don't deal, then don;t give them your money.

[cjmumto2]

We called Sky up 2 days after signing up to say we changed our minds as we couldnt afford it and they offered us a cheaper deal, free installation and free sky+ box. So in the end we stayed, as it was more than worth our while. We were really trying to leave though so we were on the phone for an hour as they kept offering more.

[TraceyB79]

I had my car insurance renewal notice from Tesco couple weeks ago, so thought i'd have a look around to see if i could find anything considerably cheaper, - found a cheaper quote on their website - only a couple of poundscheaper though, but also included protected no claims - which they had offered in my renewal for £82.95 extra! So I called them, explaining i wasnt very impressed as had been with them for 4 years, so intended to not renew, lovely lady reduced the policy amount, included the no claims prtoection AND gave me a £40 Tesco giftcard for my trouble!

[debfra]

I phoned up sky to cancel my subsciption, I told them I couldnt afford it at the time they offered me the full sky package for six months at 1p a month. how could I refuse that? so I watched the next six months for 6p then phoned them just before the price went back up, and told them I still couldnt afford it so I wanted to cancel, they offered me a further six months full package for £11 a month, not as good as the 1p but still better than £42
better in my account than theirs

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[jinkssick]

gf was paying £14.99 a month with T MOBILE, offpeak 750 mins to mobiles, homephones.

She threathened to leave and had been with them for over 6 years. She refused an alternative and she still stated she wanted to leave. Right at the end they gave her a linerental for £1 with 3000 mins to tmobiles and homephones off peak only. Were on it now still and we use all the minutes offpeak.

[Zoo TV]

I was with Atlas Direct for an annual policy for my wife and I. The renewal came in at £80.80. I called threatened to leave. They immediatley knocked it down to £60. I threatened to kleave as I found a cheaper quote for £42 and they beat it to £40.40

A whopping 50% off!!!

[Jennikay]

Not much, but I called O2 a month or 2 ago (I am on PAYG) and said I wanted to leave, they put me through to the people who would 'give me my PAC', and they gave me £5 credit, for free, as a 'goodwill gesture'.