MSE Poll: Have you haggled with Sky, BT, the AA and more this year? Did you succeed?

I find it disturbing that a few days ago the AA charged me a certain amount to renew my car insurance, but when I telephoned to ask why it had increased by so much, the team member seemed authorised to drop it at once. Another question was followed by another drop in price, by a total of £50. It's the blatant over-charging that is disturbing, as if it is now perfectly acceptable to take advantage of the busy or diffident.

I had a fairly big success with Tesco Mobile thanks to the mobile haggling guide on this site. I was paying £10 a month for a contract that was due to expire and found a decent SIM only deal for £5. I phoned Tesco to see if they could match it and actually what they came back with was dismal by comparison (£6 for a far worse bundle). I wonder how many would walk away at that stage? They'll say it's all they can do but I find you have to go double or nothing and reject the first offer. If you're persuasive enough and know exactly what you want you'll find them scrambling for something better. I knew what my usage was and insisted my budget was just £5 and they came back with a deal much better than my original contract (makes you wonder why they can't do that in the first place?) Incidentally, I use Tesco Xtras so my monthly phone bill is only £2 a month. I really don't think it's possible to find better than that.

No luck with getting the Amex card fee waived after year 1 (was waived in year 1) which, was my preferred option at the time so I just cancelled the card and got my wife to take out an Amex card instead (with a supplementary for me - free) where we will earn a bonus and not pay any annual fee in the first year. I sense this will repeat itself down the line. A bit of admin but works out better than anything they would offer (including any renewal points bonus).

Sky - called to cancel TV and they offered me the original bundle (not on the sky Q box) + unlimited fibre broadband (40MB speed) + payg landline including rental for £30pm (Line rental was £9.99pm, broadband was £6.01pm and tv £14pm - 18 month contract - so don't have to go through this as often) + £10 installation charge (which had I pushed would probably have been waived). In the past I've paid around £8 for tv so didn't think that was the best but BT wanted to charge me £35.50pm just for broadband and line rental. Left BT - they did try to offer something later but they couldn't come close to the sky offer.

Also always have some success with my car insurance and home insurance. Never accepted their renewals but I do like and prefer my providers (churchill and direct line).

I got my Sky internet and line rental down from £38.99 pm to £20 per month yesterday.