Virgin Media Retention thread

visidigi

hardwyred wrote: »

Having worked myself up to it I finally phoned VM to try to reduce my bill. I was paying around £80 a month, TV XL, 60m BB, XL phone and a £10 subscription to boxnation. Got through to retentions and moved to basic phone, medium TV (I never watched most of the 200 odd channels) and 30m BB saving £35 a month. My friend has the same 30m BB and on the odd occasion he uses my internet finds no difference in speed or connectivity. I don't game or download movies or watch programmes online and use the internet for surfing, banking, reading articles. I've never had problems with VM and didn't want to leave so I am happy with the new deal. I wouldn't be the best haggler in the world, but I was pleasantly surprised by my experience. My aim was to save some money and I've done that. The advice on this site was very helpful, without it I probably would have kept putting off contacting VM. So thanks MSE, saved me serious money.

http://store.virginmedia.com/bundles/essential.html

That means you have been moved to that, if you are paying more than £44 including line rental then can them back as that's the standard price for your requirements (you haven't said what happened to your boxnation sub so left that out...)

Its important to know VM retentions will often throw numbers out there like its a discount because they are reducing your services in doing so they freequently just offer you what a normal customer would get.

lozsta

visidigi wrote: »

I've been with them 11 years, had the 1TB TiVo since day one of it being available, the 500GB was added this subscription period. The cost difference between the boxes is a matter of £5 - but I already had the equipment that mattered (the second TiVo replaced a V+HD so I was already paying a second box surcharge)

Sky Sports £35.70 in HD and its £41.25 for Sky Movies and Sports in HD.

If you took those two things into account £10.55 is the difference between you and me when equipment is compared.

I have never managed to get VM to less than £89 for a XL TV, Sky Sports and Movies and 60mb BB... I don't think you can...

I went for newer equipment and kept the price higher to get the deal I wanted. You have to know what you want and be realistic.

75% isn't going to happen, 50% isn't going to happen.

£114.24 is the list price for my package.
£89 is what I pay.

That's a 23% discount.

Just got off the phone with them.

Kept everything the same except anytime calls for £81.34 for the year. So I got 26% off my original package price.

Having had Sky prior to the change of sky movies to this continual rerun style they have adopted now I never wanted the movies package since.

So I have:

60 Meg BB
TV XL with 500GB TiVo and an HD box for my gaming room
Phone with evenings and weekend
Sky Sports + HD

So I am fairly happy. I would have preferred to get them down to £75 of a round £900 a year but £976.08 is okay.

crazygoog

crazygoog wrote: »

Hi. I am currently getting:

XL TV
XL BB (60Mb)
M Phone (weekends)
Talk 08 2
Additional V+HD box upstairs
500Gb Tivo
Sky Sports (not HD)

Already paid line rental saver last year too.

This is coming to £80 p/m and any discounts I had have since fallen off. Could I realistically expect to save a decent amount on this?

Any advice appreciated through your experiences.

I have just come off the phone too and got £9 off my bill bringing me down to £71. I am pretty happy with that.

NewcastlePaul

Loyalty Bonus had expired and was going back upto £36 a month for Phone and 20mb unlimited broadband.

Rang up and asked to quit. Was honest and said I can't afford it. Lady said if i stayed she would do it for £24 a month (line rental included)
Appreciated the offer but still too much. She offered 18 month contract but first 6 months at £19 a month.

Happy with that so accepted and still in the Virgin World until at least August 2015

hardwyred

My experience with the 'new' package so far is good. I've got rid of channels I never watched, my broadband connection is as fast as ever and last night I enjoyed a great night of entertainment on Boxnation which is included in my overall 46.64 per month. As I hardly use my landline I do not anticipate any problems with the phone. Glad I made the call.

Dave360180

I just signed up :

30mb BB

Evening and weekend calls

Plus new superhub 2, free Caller ID and itemised billing

Works out at £20 per month including line rental (£7.10 for 6 months then £12.10 for 6 months plus line rental saver)

Initial offer was £14 a month plus line rental but got it down by mentioning Talktalk offer (had to argue at length) and they were happy to throw in credits and free caller ID. They wouldn't throw in any free minutes or align the 12 contract with my LRS renewal though.

Didn't go thru cancellation as it seemed OK to me.

One thing to watch for in case anyone doesn't know - the new contract starts pretty much straight away rather than when your existing deal expires.

Now just to find out a decent lost cost provider for any daytime calls ...

KiKi

Hi everyone, I have:

M+ TV
M phone (is this the most basic I can get?)
20MB BB


They've offered:

M+ TV
M phone
30MB BB (to go to 50 in June)
Sky Sports (which I want for the F1 season)
TiVo and hub


They're offering this to me for £59 for 6 months, then £64 (it should be £70).

Does this sound reasonable? I used to have it for £55, so it sounds like a big increase to me...! But I'm not sure if I'm being unreasonable. They refused to drop to £55, and told me that I'd have to lose my phone number (as if that's a huge deal to me!) if I moved to Sky or TalkTalk...

Thanks
KiKi

thor

Is it not possible to get through to retentions directly anymore? I ask because when ringing 150 I found the 'thinking of leaving us' option is no more. Or maybe this was never a connection to retentions and you always have to go through the run of the mill cust service to get indirectly routed to retentions anyway.

KiKi

thor wrote: »

Is it not possible to get through to retentions directly anymore? I ask because when ringing 150 I found the 'thinking of leaving us' option is no more. Or maybe this was never a connection to retentions and you always have to go through the run of the mill cust service to get indirectly routed to retentions anyway.

You have to go through option 4 - changing your services.

thor

Well I did the deed and decided to accept the new deal on offer rather than wait and call again next week when my min 12 months period had ended.

I have gone from £48 per month to £30 per month.

I have downgraded:
Tv from L to M+(will only miss the Discovery Science channel)
The phone will lose talk 08 2 but this is easy to get around using saynoto0870

I have upgraded:
From Superhub to Superhub2(only a minor upgrade)
Best of all - My V HD box will be replaced by a tivo.

Lastly I have finally elected to pay 12 months upfront - something I have left for far too long.

I did try and push him for an extra tv box but he did not budge. I guess had I gone the cancellation route and given notice this is something they might have come back with but I'm satisfied for now and it gives me something to aim for when it starts again in 12 months time.