Digital TV Cost Cutting Article - Discuss What You've Been Offered

HappySad

Jorayner wrote:

Any suggestions for me. We have sky+ sports and multiroom. Would be happy to drop multiroom.

Tried phoning but contract is in my husband's name and they won't deal with me. He's too busy/not bothered in phoning up.

Any suggestions to get round this. Could threaten to cancel the direct debit but that might just get me in a mess.


Could we write and cancel and then phone to reinstate?

You could call them while your husband is there. Get your husband to answer all the security questions then let him state that they is this case should deal with you. He then hands over the phone to you and you can then speak to them to make your deal. We have done this on many occasion with AOL. Eventually we moved the account in my name.

Hillfly

Monstermind - how do you know all this great info? Are you an employee by any chance? (obviously don't say too much as you may get in trouble - i know that SKY staff do peruse the digital spy forums so they may well lurk here too!).

saintscouple

Was on family pack + movies with sky+ recording for over £40 month, we've never used the movie channel just had it at set-up to avoid sky+ recording charge.
Have now accepted family pack + sports + sky+ recording for £18 month for 5 months.
Thanks Monstermind, will be in touch in 5 months time

gbcasual

I'm going to be signing up for Sky Broadband and therefore will be tied to Sky for another 12 months. Hence I thought I'd try and get a long term 'deal' on viewing, including SkyPlus recording.

Was offered Family Pack and Sports for £18/month for 5 months straight off.

When asked if they had any longer term ones, Sports was £27/month for 12 months and complete Sky World (i.e. Sports and Movies plus everything else) was £31/month for 12 months.

Given I'll be tied in for 12 months on the Broadband, I went for the Sky World pack for 12 months.

MarieL_2

I got Telewest broadband last year at £14.99 per month, with a deal for a year's free cable TV basic package. A year on, my monthly bill has just increased to £23.49 now that the TV deal has run out. I telephoned them to cancel the TV package and they offered to put me on another special deal for 6 months covering broadband and TV for less than I was paying before! So now I'm only going to pay about £13 a month for broadband with the TV thrown in. They also tried to talk me into taking out a deal to include their telephone service.

Incidentally, on the telephone front, I have tried to register for 1899.com several times but they are oversubscribed and can't take any new customers, so I am continuing with my 18866.com calls, which are also very cheap compared to BT.

smellybum

Hi

I have just cut my ntl bill from around £90 a month to £32 a month.

I had the full package with movies/sports/broadband which all came to around £70 and it appears we spend £20 on a month on phone calls.

I Phoned them and told them that was I was off to sky as my contract had expired. Without any haggling they immediatley offered me The family pack (all channels) phone with free weekend calls and broadband for £32 for 6 months and they told me to phone up after 5 months and get the same offer or even maybe something better. I have set an alarm on my mobile phone for this, so there is no way I can forget about it.

I decided to ditch the movies and sports as we worked out that we really only watched around 2 films a week as everything was repeated. Have a quick view through the movie channels and you will see it is just the same films over and over again with sometimes 2 or more of the channels showing the same film on the same night. Plus everybody gets film 4 for free these days and many of the afternoon kids films you can still find on the disney and kids channels

The sports I really only watched for maybe 3 hours a week, usually the sunday televised match.
I have told the mrs to start using my mobile phone for phone calls during the week as I get 500 mins a month with the contract I am on.

So around £700 a year saved, that will buy a few decent weekends away which is always good. :j :beer: :T

Dave_G-B

I have been through the pain of calling Sky to get 3 months reduced payments. This I found unsatisfactory. I told Sky that as a loyal customer I wanted more than new customers got. I took the power solution and was quite prepared to cancel all services. To my suprise, after some apathy on my part, they offered a 25% reduction for 12 months.

Can nanyone get them down to 33% or 50%

Good Luck

jinkssick

What is the cheapest deal with the most basic package. I find each one of the things mentioned a complete rip off. The movies selection is pretty poor and one movie gets replayed 6 times in a 24 hour span. With over 200 channels, everytime I go to a friends house, there is Nothing to watch. Only channel I would love and would be interested in is Discovery Channel. Apart from that Sky is a ripoff.

And I cannot believe the fact that Sky+, you cannot just copy the files to a computer or similar. That is absurd. I have a Hauppage usb2 which records dirctly from freeview channels straight onto a pc.

The football selection is something that is also laughable showing one or 2 games a week, and then they want £80 a season for additional games.

monty100

Dave_G-B wrote:

To my suprise, after some apathy on my part, they offered a 25% reduction for 12 months.

Wow Dave! I've just plucked up courage to call and cancel and let myself be fobbed off with 3 months half price - I obviously haven't got that 'firm' streak!! I should have ummed and ahhed a bit more. I will be calling up again just before it expires to see if they can do better.

Anyway, on the basis that something is better than nothing, it will go towards Sky+ which the kids are pestering us for - just got to plan when I call up for that and how to manage it. Unfortunately my DH doesn't feel that he can contribute to this moneysaving exercise!!!

BaileyB

Just a word of warning the 25% for 12months normally ties you in for another 12 months to sky. something you need to think carefully about.