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Sky Loophole!! TV, broadband and phone for £6/mth
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Update 11 March 2008: Offer still open, but less promoted. This offer is still available, but being less promoted, my suspicion is Sky is trying to level off demand; not a problem though as you can still get it.
What's the deal?
Until the end of March, new customers who sign up to a Sky package via a special cashback website can get £150 cashback on the deal.
Taking this into account, those who have BT landlines can get a year's basic TV package (including installation) plus broadband (depending where you live see later), and free evening & weekend calls for a total of £72 (the equivalent of £6/month). Considering most cheap broadband packages by themselves cost £10/month, this is a ridiculously cheap deal.
You can also get higher level TV packages and still get the cashback.
How this cashback deal works
Cashback sites are specialist 'advertising' websites that list retailers and product providers. They get paid by the retailers if you click through them, but importantly they then give some or all of this cash to you (provided you've registered which is free).
The Top Cashback Sites.
There are a number of sites that pay £150: Topcashback, CashbackKings, Quidco (though it currently has some payout reliability issues) and Wepromiseto. Regulars can go with the one they prefer. New cashback site users will find Topcashback the winner as all the others keep the first £5 you earn a year.
Usually the standard Sky cashback is usually around £100, so this a top deal which changes the economics.
WARNING! Cashback sites are never 100% guaranteed payout.
As cashback sites rely on the retailers paying them, you can never count cashback as a sure thing until it's in your bank account.
However, all my feelers & research say its very likely this one will work smoothly. Sky is aware its being pushed heavily, especially by Topcashback, and Sky is actually rewarding the cashback sites on who gets better sign-ups.
Overally it's pretty unlikely that anyone won't get the cashback, yet unlike a retailers cashback deal, this system it isn't guaranteed.
If you're a first time cashback site user, please do read the full Best Cashback Sites article for a full explanation of the pros and cons. Plus to see how the different sites payouts compare use the Cashback Sites Maximiser
What is available on this cashback deal?
All mainstay Sky packages are available, so if you are going to sign up to Sky, this is a massive cost cutter.
The Basic Package
Sky’s cheapest package is £16 a month, plus £30 installation. In other words the total layout over the 12 month minimum contract term is £222. Take off the £150 cashback and you're paying £72 for the year.
However its worse remembering that all Sky customers using its phone service will need to pay BT's £10.50 (ish) monthly line rental too.
For this you get:
Sky Box: Just the standard. The Sky Plus recordable box is £99 more.
Basic Sky Channels: One basic entertainment channel 'mix'. These are quite extensive see a list, though again you could upgrade to selected packages, but they're not that cheap.
Sky Talk Freetime, which includes free evening and weekend telephone calls (though you can do this for free anyway; so don't necessarily need this - full details and how to cut call costs are in the Cheap Home Phones article)
2Mb Broadband. Most Sky TV customers (it depends on location check on this page) get its basic broadband for free. The 2Mb speed is fast, though some other providers offer faster. The download limit is 2Gb, which is plenty for standard home users. Again if you want it faster you can upgrade. See Cheapest Broadband for how it compares and explanations of terms.
As a comparison, if you were to get Virgin's similar offer you'd pay roughly £30 a month right now though this does include the telephone line rental. This Sky deal is £16.50 a month including line rental.
Remember this is costed on a year
The savings above have been worked out over the first year (the minimum contract length). After that of course you'll be paying the full whack. So it's worth putting that date in your diary and considering whether you really need this deal or could get it cheaper. Read the Digital TV Cost Cutting article for details on how to save cash on existing deals.
Go quick!
Normally Sky cashback deals only pay about £100 for new customers so this is top deal. This offered is scheduled to end on 31 March, but my weekly e-mail now goes out to over 1.8 million people, and when similar offers have been included, sites pulled their cashback offers quickly. So grab it now if you want it.
Martin
Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert.
Please note, answers don't constitute financial advice, it is based on generalised journalistic research. Always ensure any decision is made with regards to your own individual circumstance.
well i cant wait to get rid of sky all ive had is problems, plus i pay £58 a month tv with sport no movies and broadband which is very slow, and free calls after 6 but bt do this anyway but what a waste repeats of almost all the shows. I cannot wait until my contract expires october 2008(to long for my liking)so id say its all ya own choice but me im gonna stay well clear of sky from now on.
I live in a remote place where the sky broadband offer is not available. Instead they want to charge an extra STG10 per month. Is it still worth while?
I can't see how anyone can possibly think Sky is expensive given both the quantity and quality of their content!
I pay about £55 a month for the full package with sports and movies including HD with Sky+. Given that this is a paltry £1.80 a day I think it's an absolute bargain - I spend more than that on wine alone.
I did all the maths and worked out the cost of the odd DVD rental as well and Sky was way cheaper than any other combination.
Personally I'd go for the full package with HD (which is brilliant for movies and sports) .
I've had their broadband for about six months and it's generally been pretty good. The odd outage but no worse than my previous providers - BT & then Pipex.
The real winner for me though is the "on demand" nature of the Sky+ box and the way I can set it to record every episode of a series or a set of sports events etc. I hardly ever watch a programme in "real" time any more and always zap straight through the commercials. It's totally changed the way I think about watching TV.
I've got some friends with Virgin and they've had nothing but problems with their internet connections and their customer service is awful. Sky can be patchy in this regard but in general they've usually been quite helpful whenever I've had to call them.
Oh well, I guess you can't please all the people all of the time but I'm definitely one happy customer!
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I have been with $ky long before they went digital and I would love to go HD but they refuse to give any loyalty bonus. The one they had last year was a joke as better deals were still being offered to "new subscribers". At the moment I have the movie channels which I barely watch, so I'm thinking of dumping them but would keep them if I went HD but went I tried to use that as a haggling device I got nowhere. Are there any tips anyone can give to haggle with them. I got though to India and I was wondering if I got though to Scotland I may do better, is there a time of day when my chances of getting though there is more likely?
And they've some (much smaller) cashbacks for existing subscribers too:
£5 for existing user upgrade to BB base, BB connect, Talk freetime or Talk unlimited
£10 for existing user upgrade to BB mid
£15 for existing user upgrade to BB max or Sky HD
BT residential landline? Click HERE to see my '6 steps to reducing costs' (last updated 14-October-2009). Read the full MSE article too though - it's a money-saving read.
Got to say Sky have always been excellent on customer service and offers.
Always had a Scottish customer service rep, didn't realise they had moved any call takers out abroad, but other services that do I have always found the staff to be courteous, helpful and easily understood.
Negotiated a less than half price Sky+ box with free installation and free relocation of standard box. The dish was upgraded and received a reduction in the monthly bill as long as i didn't reduce the package.
The hardware has always been excellent, Sky+ is a great bit of kit, and can only say to previous comments, if you watch the same channels you will get repeats, but with so many channels you have so much choice and have no need to watch a single repeat.
I have heard the same problems regarding Virgin too, a friend was being charged constantly for films they had never ordered.
Just Signed up to both Top CashBack and the Sky deal, all was really easy and straight forward, hopefully the installation will be too. The cash is already showing in my account, but looks like I've got to wait for it to become confirmed. My friend has Sky and loves it, so he also recommended it....but eitherway, at £6 per month I don't think I'll have too much to complain about. . . Well chuffed !
However its worse remembering that all Sky customers using its phone service will need to pay BT's £10.50 (ish) monthly line rental too.
You can now switch your line rental to SKY its £10 a month 50p cheaper then BT,S lowest price. They also offer Free Caller Display.However if you still want to use the likes of 1899/18185 etc , or want to use BT to place some of your calls dont switch.
Don't Sky have something like 8 million or more subscribers now?
With an average of more than 2 people per household I'd guess that that out of the 16 million + customers they have there must be a fair few MILLION that also happen to think they provide good service?
Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps. Take care over copyright. Use excerpts and links rather than copying long text. This site asserts copyright on all comments posted on the board.
Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps.
Sky Loophole!! TV, broadband and phone for £6/mth
mmmmmmmmmmm should i take up this offer ?
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