Virgin Media Retention thread

zen135

I'm currently on the Broadband L (20mbps) package plus Line Rental, paying £21. The broadband package is due to be upgraded to 60mbps in June for free without any change. I'm also paying Sky around £34 for the Entertainment Extra package plus HD subscription. Does the total price of £55 sound alright for the level of services I'm getting with Virgin and Sky or can I get a better deal if I switch to just one provider for all the services?

Hey_Dude

A few years ago I was offered a 'lifetime' deal which I always thought was pretty good:

XL Phone
M TV
L Broadband
£17.79 package + £13.90 line rental = £31.69.

I've been thinking about upgrading to XL TV - yesterday a leaflet is delivered with a Premiere Collection:

Tivo
HD extra box
XL Broadband (that would be nice)
XL TV (I want this)
L Phone (which I could live with)
....all for £22.50 for 6 months then £45 (albeit for new customers).

Given the antique of a Virgin box I have in my front room am I being taken for a mug???

More importantly does anyone know if they are amenable to giving the new deals to existing customers??

MTIA

Duder

visidigi

daveandgem wrote: »

Apologies if I've missed something but I wondered if anyone can help with the following:

1 Do you have much / any bargaining power with retentions if you're say only 6 months into an 12 / 18 month contract?

2 Can anyone confirm if you cancel partway into a longer contract whether you have to pay all the remaining monthly costs off?

3 Is it possible to find out when your contract ends if you didn't make a note of it?!

4 For those who don't have bundled TV: can this deal be improved much?

- line rental £14
- 10mb cable bb £15 (incl. discount)
- 24/7 calls £8
- caller display £2
- no tv

total £39 (this is after expiry of an introductory 6m halfprice bb offer)

Apologies again if this has been asked before.

If I read that right you have got to the end of the promotional period and now you are at full price you want a discount.

Its highly unlikely this will happen on the basis of the contract term is weighted on the 6 month discount.

If you Can't cancel contract due to price rise (you might be too late now) then you are going to be liable for the whole remaining balance...

visidigi

Hey_Dude wrote: »

A few years ago I was offered a 'lifetime' deal which I always thought was pretty good:

XL Phone
M TV
L Broadband
£17.79 package + £13.90 line rental = £31.69.

I've been thinking about upgrading to XL TV - yesterday a leaflet is delivered with a Premiere Collection:

Tivo
HD extra box
XL Broadband (that would be nice)
XL TV (I want this)
L Phone (which I could live with)
....all for £22.50 for 6 months then £45 (albeit for new customers).

Given the antique of a Virgin box I have in my front room am I being taken for a mug???

More importantly does anyone know if they are amenable to giving the new deals to existing customers??

MTIA

Duder

Your premier £45 monthly price is plus the £13.90 line rental.

So it would be £36.40 during promotion and £58.90 after promotion...

ghayoor

W1zz wrote: »

VM will be getting a call from me this morning :mad:

Current deal I had which I negotiated in January was suppose to last a minimum of 12 months. It was:

XL TV Package
XL Broadband
Telephone
V+ Box
2nd Standard box

I was paying £41 per month in service charges.

This months statement is missing one of the usual discounts of '3 for £30 Bundle Saving -£11.50'

Not only that, theres an additional charge for services 24 June to 23 July of £11.50.

It looks like they're claiming back the 3 for £30 discount I had on last months bill.

Total services bill this month is £64 compared to my usual £41.

Just priced up identical package with Sky including line rental and they work out at £41 per month. Sky is also free evenings and weekends and their TV has Sky One and Sky News + many others.

I know Virgin will claim that the Sky+ box isn't HD, whereas their V+ box is, but since theres still only BBC HD on V+, I wouldn't be missing much.

Retentions, here I come...

It is the double dutch of the broad band companies, i suppose because i am also suffering from these hard times:(

Dave360180

Thanks for the advice. I got:

- line rental
- cable bb
- caller display
- 24/7 calls (talk unlimited)
- talk 0870, mobile and international packages

for £27.15 per month with a 12 month contract.

I am very happy with that :T

ranvinder

Looking at some of the other packages offered to others, I think I have done pretty well.

I think the key thing to do when retentions call back is to know what you want, what you want to pay and what sky are offering. That wasn't the case with me when I initially called to cancel as I was calling about the price change which they didn't budge on.

I currently have
XL TV with Asian Channels (£12 extra a month for Asian)
2 V+HD boxes
XL phone (talk unlimited) with Talk mobile and international
L Broadband (10mb)

I was paying £50.80 but this has gone up to £56.30 following the price increase and due to go up again to £76.20 after my 12 month deal had run out.

To bargain with Virgin I said I wanted to get rid of XL TV (don't need the channels), and one box and that an equivalent deal from Sky was £42.58 including all quidco cashback and m&S etc over 12 months. When I called to cancel, Virgin offered nowhere near that, I think it was about £64 the best they could offer.

Retentions called about 4-5 times over the course of a week after I cancelled but I kept missing them before I actually got to speak to them on Monday. To better skys £42.58 they offered me the following for £44.99 a month (12 month contract) with a month free, immediate credit onto the account.

XL telephone unlimited (don't need any of the mobile and international add ons I had before)
M+ TV with asian channels
L (10mb broadband)

With the month free, its effectively £41.25 for the year so cheaper than sky with much better hardware and broadband. I cheekily then said sky were offereing a better box with more hard drive space.. so they have chucked in 500gb tivo for free.. and I also said can I have the superhub as my own router is awful so they have chucked in for free too.

If you minus off the asian channels which are £12 a month extra, i am now effectively paying £29.25 a month for -

L (10mb) Broadband with superhub (will double soon)
XL unlimited calls phone
M+ TV with 500gb Tivo

Decent eh!!!

so good i've decided after to keep one of the two v+HD boxes I currently have for the other room as its only £6.50 extra a month.

Thank the lords for retentions call backs.. thats two years in a row they've kept me on and their deals are much better, even better than new customer deals as you can usually get them for 12 months and then try your luck again the following year.

oggsy

Hi, been with VM 14 years now and saw my package increase along with everyone else. I looked to moving to Sky and found their price structure a little too overcomplicated for me, couple that with having no phone with B.T (free install BTW) but would lose my phone number. Crunching the figures led me to believe Sky wasnt for me.

Talk Talk could offer broadband and phone line but no tv package, same with Plusnet.

Armed with info I have found on these pages I negotiated a deal there and then, initially wanting to cancel.

Original package; XL tv, M phone and L broadband =£48.90 pm

New package; XL tv with 500 gb TIVO box free install,
Install old V+ box upstairs,
L phone with free landlines 24/7( not sure on package name)
400 minutes to cross network mobiles from my landline
30 meg broadband with new superhub.

All free fitting on 2/5/12 for £62.90 pm

Well happy with that as I have been using £30 worth of mobile and land calls, so will have no extra to find above my monthly figure, so feel happy for next 12 months, all confirmed in writing to boot. Toodle Pip and good hunting.

kellcomuk

After seeing the latest TV ads and reading what others are getting I think VM are ripping me (a customer of some 13 years or so) off somewhat...

XL TV with Sky Sports/Movies. 1 x V-HD box only (NO Tivo box as I was told they want a £50 installation fee and it costs another £8 per month).

XL Broadband, only 20mb (XL should be 100?). NO 'Superhub'. Asked about that and told I'd have to pay nearly £80 for one!!

XL Phone - with Talk Mobile, 10 Talk 08, 2 Talk Unlimited.

Bundle Charges total: £65.55
Telephone Line Rental: £13.90
Permium Add-ons (sky): £29.50

Package Total: £108.95p

Now looking at VM's site the new top tier 'VIP' package has everything I have and more (Tivo, additional V-HD Box, 100mb Broadband, Superhub, Sky Movies/Sports HD channels etc) but costs less than I'm paying now: £90 per month (with Phone rental it would be £103.90 p/m). New customers get 6 months for half that and no "Installation" fees!!

Not a happy chappy so if anyone can post the 'Retentions' number with advice on how to approach the rep (without losing my temper) I would appreciate it.

visidigi

kellcomuk wrote: »

Not a happy chappy so if anyone can post the 'Retentions' number with advice on how to approach the rep (without losing my temper) I would appreciate it.

dial 150, select the thinking of leaving option, be polite, say what you want and what you expect...stick to your guns and they should offer the VIP package