Virgin Media: Haggle down your costs.

hansi

sarah8484 wrote: »

Hi Everyone,

I am currently a VM customer, I have phone with free evenings a weekend calls, caller display and medium broadband. I also have sky tv (6 mix) and multi room for £32 per month. I was tring to get sky+ for free but the best they would offer was 49 + 60 instalation, so i rang vm.

First time i called i was offered

V+ Box (75 install)
Multiroom - £5
XL TV
Same phone + BB

All for £41. I though this was good so told them to go ahead as is still less than what I am paying now. I called sky to cancel they offered me sky+ for £49 (no install fee) So i called VM back.

This time i got

V+ Box
Multiroom
XL TV
10mb BB
Phone + evenings/weekend calls
Free caller display
£20 good will gesture

All still for £41 per month. Does this look like a good deal?? i'm quite pleased as i am only paying £55 for install and do not need to pay it upfront as it comes out of next bill.

Also what are peoples views on v+ box, i've read alot of mixed reviews some have said that it is really slow compared to the sky boxes, is that true??

Thanks for any help
Sarah

Go to http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/ Very useful

lorrs58

Hi Everyone,

Are the costs displayed including V.A.T?

cheers

DarrenSW

Was paying £37.95 for M BB, L TV, and L phone; asked Virgin to look at reducing my package, citing Sky's offer of their equivalent to XL TV, M BB and M phone for £31.50 + £30 installation (admittedly, I fibbed about them waiving the £99 Sky+ installation fee! - and don't even mention the £122.33 I'd have to pay to get a BT line in ).

Much haggling saw them offer XL TV with V+ box, M BB and M calls for £31 per month (e-billed) with £75 "half price" V+ installation. Tried variously to get them to reduce or preferably waive the V+ installation charge, then for a free second standard box for the bedroom, and finally the rather-desperate free Caller Display - nothing doing on any of those :mad: The one concession they did make was that I asked for a free wireless router, which they readily agreed to (so I can eBay my Apple AirPort Extreme at least).

End result is that I've saved £6.95 a month overall, done away with free calls that I was never using, and got an 3-tuner HD box and all the Virgin on-demand content for nothing. I'm pretty satisfied with that :beer:

RJG007

Hi Folks... my first post!

I'm currently with VM and have Phone XL, Broadband M and Television M. After a loyalty discount and ebill discount I pay £18 a month including line rental.

I was trying to think of a way to haggle an increase on my Broadband or Television. Does anybody have a better deal already or have had success in trying?

Thanks!

Schnoogleboo

Just got....XL TV, L BB and M phone for £39 a month, with V+ installation for £50 Hope this is a good deal, only wanted the V+ anyways, was a major haggle, but got it sorted is a litte more than I was paying but I only had L TV, and L BB before

msc1977

Just thought i would let u know of my 'haggling experience' with VM.

Currently have

VM Phone XL & VM B/B Medium at £19.50 per month - this includes a loyalty discount that expires on 02/02/09 at the end of our 12m contract.
Sky 3 mixes @ £19.00 per month

Total Cost per month £38.50.

Called VM on Saturday said we want to come to you for TV but unless you can offer a decent deal will cancel BB and Phone.


I was offered:-
£50 V+ Installation
L Phone (daytime calls are no use to us anyway)
L BB (increase from 2mb to 10mb didnt want this but was offered)
XL TV

£37.75 per month inc ebilling discount. Asked to reduce the BB to M but was told this would only reduce monthly cost to £37.20?

I decided the offer was a pretty good deal as we were getting all the TV channels except sport and movies plus increased BB for a small saving per month.

Anyway, tonight inspired by this thread i called them and confirmed the deal i had already been offered but explained that Sky retentions had contacted us and were offering a deal on multiroom and what could they do?

The lady i spoke to was fab, she immediately reduced the install by a further £20 and adv that she could reduce the BB from L to M (which we wanted in the first place) but then add on a further standard box multiroom at a total cost of £39.50 per month so for only £1 extra than i'm paying now i get the XL TV in two rooms.

I'm pretty chuffed with this and am hoping i've got a pretty good deal?

BexTech

msc1977 wrote: »

Just thought i would let u know of my 'haggling experience' with VM.

Currently have

VM Phone XL & VM B/B Medium at £19.50 per month - this includes a loyalty discount that expires on 02/02/09 at the end of our 12m contract.
Sky 3 mixes @ £19.00 per month

Total Cost per month £38.50.

Called VM on Saturday said we want to come to you for TV but unless you can offer a decent deal will cancel BB and Phone.


I was offered:-
£50 V+ Installation
L Phone (daytime calls are no use to us anyway)
L BB (increase from 2mb to 10mb didnt want this but was offered)
XL TV

£37.75 per month inc ebilling discount. Asked to reduce the BB to M but was told this would only reduce monthly cost to £37.20?

I decided the offer was a pretty good deal as we were getting all the TV channels except sport and movies plus increased BB for a small saving per month.

Anyway, tonight inspired by this thread i called them and confirmed the deal i had already been offered but explained that Sky retentions had contacted us and were offering a deal on multiroom and what could they do?

The lady i spoke to was fab, she immediately reduced the install by a further £20 and adv that she could reduce the BB from L to M (which we wanted in the first place) but then add on a further standard box multiroom at a total cost of £39.50 per month so for only £1 extra than i'm paying now i get the XL TV in two rooms.

I'm pretty chuffed with this and am hoping i've got a pretty good deal?

The good thing about the XL TV package is it includes Setanta (if you like sports, me I'm not that bothered) but you also get TV Choice On Demand - a huge library of TV programmes to watch when you like for no extra cost.

sparklygemster

BexTech wrote: »

Note VM only has one HD channel - BBC HD and a handful of HD VOD programmes they haven't really changed in years. So I wouldn't really get excited about HD as 1 channel out of 300 or so isn't a great number to be getting excited about. Sky has around 30 HD channels, though VM should be adding 2 or 3 HD channels sometime next year.

Any idea what HD channels they will be adding?

MKPhil05

Just my 2pence...

Was on:
BB: L (10MB)
TV: L
Phone: Talk Evening & Weekend

Total cost: £40.45 after the e-Billing discount of £1 and a "Bundle Saving" of £9.50

After analysing how much we use the phone and what we watch we decided that "TV: M" and "Phone: M" would best suit our needs (and our pockets!) but wanted to keep the 10Mb broadband and found that there was a package available on the VM site with all those options for £27 (£16 + £11 line rental) so called up...

Spoke to a guy who said that the deal on the site was "only for new customers" and that we'd loose the "Discount" :eek: and therefore the net saving was only going to be around £3.50ish (can't remember the exact figure he said). Said we weren't too happy and he said he'd pass us to Customer Relations (or maybe Retentions...?) as they can offer a wider range of discounts. Spoke to a woman there and she imediately offered us the £27 package albeit tied to them for 12 months.

So we're not paying for stuff we don't use and have saved £13.45 a month ... Now looking at alternatives for daytime and evening calls (i.e. those not included in the package) to cut those costs too! (any tips?)

dawyldthing

AmyTheThriftyStudent wrote: »

I originally signed up to Virgin Media for 20MB (XL) broadband, and they said they would throw in free weekend and evening calls to landlines, as well as TV for £30.99/month. After 9 months, I was going home for the summer, so after investigating the options I got the services put on hold (a 'holiday' thing that reduces the cost).

I then moved house and was promised that if I moved my account the contract details would be kept the same and that I would NOT be tied into a new 12mth contract. In fact, when I moved, Virgin increased the broadband/TV/phone package cost to £43.50/mth AND I was unknowingly entered into a new 12mth contract.

So yesterday I phoned the disconnections line (dial 150, option 2, then 2) and was asked to explain my problem, said the above, and Virgin has now given me an additional discount, taking the cost down to £34/mth (close to what it was before) with 20MB broadband, phoneline but no free calls, and 'medium' TV.

Moaned at got £10(ish) off. Bonus!

I know when i moved in i had a guy that had the contract of my house while i was in America, and when i came back found we were stuck in a 12 month contract, and he said he thought he was continuing just for those few weeks, i'm not terribly impressed, our broadbands not too bad, we get medium tele, medium internet and phone which we dont use for 21 a month as we haven't turned off the paper bills yet, but if we stay with them again i'll definately barter with them, i got a tenner off the phone bill and a pretty good phone, i won't take no for an answer, phone up five different times, these places are huge and the chances of ever talking to the same person twice are remote, so give it a try, i will do when this runs out