Sky, Virgin & BT TV Haggle down prices and get serious discounts Article Discussion

katemayevans

I called today saying I was on maternity leave and can't afford sky at the moment (true). They offered me free broadband unlimited and line rental for 9 months, I pushed for more (having been told about half price offers etc) and they agreed to cancel me. I had to go because my baby was crying and when I called back they said that this was a 'one time only offer' and offered 12 months free line rental only (less good deal). I pushed to have the last offer and they just said that they were happy to cancel me. I have now cancelled my sky subscription with 1 months notice.
What do you think are the chances that they'll contact me? Or that if I call them back I can get the original offer (much better suited to my temporary financial needs). Obviously not paying for sky at all will save us more money, but I feel like I made a rookie haggling mistake here and would like tips to rectify it if possible.
Kate

robo999

Just sorted Free Bb. and Phone, plus existing package for £ 20.50 for ( mths then ill re haggle . lost HD , no loss.

miss_trust_2

ICHAPMAN wrote: »

Hi,

We've had Sky for a good number of years. We currently have from them:

Entertainment Extra (ie all the basic channels)
Movies (both packs)
Broadband (unlimited)
Line Rental.

Our use of the Movies is fairly limited, and I'm toying with the idea of asking them to remove them in the hope that they may consider a discounted alternative. If they don't play ball and just let me remove the movies, whats the earliest that I could re-add them should I want to?

Seem to recall that I'd need to wait 30 days?.

Thanks

you can add them back on at any time you don't have to wait, only cancelling has the notice period because you pay for it in advance

miss_trust_2

vansell wrote: »

We cancelled sky on 8th December and gave the 30 days notice. In the 30 days we have not had a letter or telephone call offering any retention deal or reduction in price at all. Seems SKY may be taking a different stance now, I may ring up tomorrow and see if anything is on offer.

if your account is cancelled there will be no offers on the account in retention as only active accounts have offers available, winbackteam may/may not contact you, there is no guarantee that they will

miss_trust_2

katemayevans wrote: »

I called today saying I was on maternity leave and can't afford sky at the moment (true). They offered me free broadband unlimited and line rental for 9 months, I pushed for more (having been told about half price offers etc) and they agreed to cancel me. I had to go because my baby was crying and when I called back they said that this was a 'one time only offer' and offered 12 months free line rental only (less good deal). I pushed to have the last offer and they just said that they were happy to cancel me. I have now cancelled my sky subscription with 1 months notice.
What do you think are the chances that they'll contact me? Or that if I call them back I can get the original offer (much better suited to my temporary financial needs). Obviously not paying for sky at all will save us more money, but I feel like I made a rookie haggling mistake here and would like tips to rectify it if possible.
Kate

the cancellations (retentions) department don't have access to 50% reductions, best they can do is 25% for 6 or 12 months off TV subscription, they always are advised to tell customers that offers are point of call and may/may not be available if you call back. In terms of getting a winback offer (which is the 50% offer off TV), there is no guarantee that team will call/contact you, it is a risk, they may contact you after your cancellation date, have seen it happen a couple of months after cancellation, depends if you can live without sky or not. If you call them back your account is in the process of cancelling down so they may not make you an offer anyway as this is in process, once the account is cancelled there will be no offers available on the account if you were to call as offers appear on live accounts only

miss_trust_2

tightarsenorthernbloke wrote: »

sky are offering free line rental for 12 months today, i had to get a bit grumpy on the phone, but they had cut me off once and passed me to three different `advisors`, just threaten to leave for virgin!!!

that threat can only work if you are in a VM area, they have a comparison tool that tells them

miss_trust_2

karlosmerkin wrote: »

Hi. Have been with sky for nearly 5 years now, paying full price for all packages.
Have had trouble with channels not working properly for some time now, saying no signal received etc. Today, all channels stopped working, or were jolty and pixellated at best.
After speaking to Sky, they did a box reset, software update and boosted our signal, but still no improvement so rang back once more.
Was told it would cost £65 for an engineer, as well as having to pay extra for a new box, as we only have a standard sky box that we've had since installation in 2007.
Not prepared to pay this for a service we've paid thousands towards over the years! Had been thinking about getting a sky+ box with them, but once again, not prepared to pay vast amounts on top of the already extortionate charges, just for some bloke to spend 2 mins installing it.
Did say to them about looking at alternatives, and they said did i want to cancel now.
Not really any viable alternatives though, as can't get freeview or virgin, and don't want to change landline and broadband from O2 as they have been brilliant.
Any suggestions on how to get sky to help us out with some kind of deal?
Cheers.

if you threaten to cancel, there should be an offer on your account with sky for an upgrade of box to sky+hd (with or without HD pack), offers are different on accounts, can be free box, box for £29 - they can only offer what is available on your account as an offer and cannot offer something that doesn't exist, and if you have been a customer for a lengthy period you can get installation free, for £15 or £30 - (also cancellations usually have an offer on discounted or free service visit) that depends on length of tenure you have with them. For sky+ you need 2 feeds from the dish so the engineer will have to drill through for the additional feed so that you can get full sky+ functionality. If you don't get a deal that suits, sometimes saying I'll think about it, then calling back and getting someone else works - if you take the offer on a box you will be re-contracted for 12 months, if the offer is with HD pack, you will also be contracted for that for 12 months

jackie_parish

When is the best day/time to call please ?

Thompo17

For signing up with SKY can you claim cashback through quidco as well as the introduce a friend offer?
Or can you only accept one of them?

maginot

miss_trust wrote: »

that threat can only work if you are in a VM area, they have a comparison tool that tells them

I don't live in a VM area and was offered 12 months free line rental. I had cancelled the TV, 4 days before it was cancelled I rang up to see if they could offer anything. Still had phone and broadband.

After a bit of a discussion and was told I couldn't get an offer as account would need to be reactivated first and if no offer would take another 30 days to cancel etc.
Eventually offered the free line rental and still out of contract with tv, which happy with as was only looking for £10 off tv for 6 months