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

JimmyTheWig

jen007 wrote: »

Anyone any suggestions of how to get my bill down?

If you're prepared to leave and go Freesat from Sky then tell them this and cancel.
Chances are they'll give you a deal which you can take or not.
If not, then you leave after a month's notice and you pay nothing more.

Either way you win, but only if you're prepared not to have the service for a while.

spendabitsaveabit

Could anyone help me out at all with this please?

I have been a Virgin customer for over 10 years my Monthly bill is around £71.69 (paid by DD) This is for:
xl TV xl Broadband & xl telephone
with 1 virgin+ box & 1 old old non HD box.

I am really wanting to get rid of the old box & replace it with a new Tivo box so I'd have a tivo box & a virgin+ box, but there's no way I can afford the £50 installation fee they are charging

I've tried comparing to similar packages with sky so I can ring up & say I could get this cheaper etc etc but have got confused with the current Sky deals & can't really ring without being armed as to what to say.
Could anyone tell me what I could say at the minute please?
Any help would be very much appreciated

[Deleted User]

spendabitsaveabit wrote: »

I am really wanting to get rid of the old box & replace it with a new Tivo box so I'd have a tivo box & a virgin+ box, but there's no way I can afford the £50 installation fee they are charging

I've tried comparing to similar packages with sky so I can ring up & say I could get this cheaper etc etc but have got confused with the current Sky deals

I don't think you'd get far with claiming, for example, that Sky would give you a Sky+HD box, because Virgin would counter by saying you have to pay £10.25 a month for HD channels which Virgin provide for free.

I'd just ring up and see what they can offer you.

spendabitsaveabit

Thanks for that, I wouldn't of known this

Tinyminx

Upon hearing tales of success from negotiating with Sky, I have just done so myself. I have all singing, all dancing Sky, HD, multiroom, sports everything - pay a whopping £96 pm. I did my homework to see how I could get similar from Virgin at £46 pm after initial discounts, and rang Sky to tell them this.
The guy was more than helpful, and after a few minutes had knocked a dramatic 40% off my monthly bill - down to £58 pm! This is for 12m but saves me £450 pa - and this time next year I'll ring again.
I was very courteous and friendly, and started by saying if we removed movies what would that do - it would have only taken £8pm off my bill.
So thanks for the advice!:beer:

fatfish59

Just rang Sky to try & reduce the costs as my previous offer had just expired. Said I was interested in going to Virgin as they could offer practically the same package, but £13 cheaper for 6 months.

I gave them the hook that I would miss my favourite channel "Sky Atlantic" as this was not available on Virgin. Magically a £12 a month reduction for 9 months appears.

Saving of £108.

Red08

Virgin Media customers..

Ive had a nightmare with the broadband, I originally had:

basic TV, M broadband (wired) & home phone = £25.80, after 4 years of inflation that ended up around £45.

called up quoting a better deal from sky with free inst & £1ppm line rental and got my vm package down to £25.80 by loosing the TV and upgrading my broadband to L.

after establishing over the last year after 10+ technical visits my 2 bed flat cant get WIFI across it due to "violent interruptions" from microwaves, cordless phones, other WIFI routers upstairs in the flats, DAB radio etc etc
I now have a superhub running with a D-Link router along side it, provided by them.. after winging that i was sold the L broadband on basis of its WIFI, and not actually getting WIFI as i was sold and not being able to downgrade my broadband to a lower package as they've scrapped the M package and overtly mis sold me the L package knowing what was occurring, i asked to leave, was told id have to pay nearly £70 to leave being in term contract, after explaining that my consumer rights had been infringed by lying virgin media the chap said IF I stayed my bill would be now £20.90, I was in contract till April '13 but due to the fact im staying my contract has been renewed regardless of date, so pay no attention to their date babble its all a talk!

I may not get WIFI but I made sure I got my moneys worth in equipment (4 routers) & technician visits (which cost £99 each time!)

My advise; GO FOR IT!
If its not worth it and you can get better else where; leave & move.

miss_trust_2

jen007 wrote: »

I've been reading the thread and thinking i'd like to give this a bash but not sure how to go about it. I was told by someone that if I threaten to leave for virgin i'd need to actually have a quote off them for a deal.
Unsure of how true that is.

Currently i'm on TV - Entertainment extra with Movies - £39.00
BB Unlimited - £7.50
Sky talk with talk anytime - £12.25 line rental, £5.00 for anytime. (£17.25 in total)

I've been with them about 1 year 8 months so out of contract. Have had a few problems with the BB.

Anyone any suggestions of how to get my bill down?

Call, threaten to cancel on financial grounds, costs to much blah blah, not as good value as it was.........If you are given an offer on TV may only be for 25%, what I did was hummed and then said nope, will cancel and during notice period will switch my fone and BB to another company (threatened plusnet as I am not in virgin area, and they know that, sky have a comparison tool that tells them if you are in a virgin area) If you play it right (as I did) you may get an offer on your TV and another on your line rental - you cannot get 2 offers on your TV package but you can get 1 on phone and another on TV. I now pay £3 per month for my line rental for 12 months and got 25% off my TV as well, good luck

yrp01

skyinsider wrote:

Ok, so first of all contact the "Value" team, if you have a tennure of longer than 5 years you will be entitled to 10 or 20% off DTV so long as you have 2 premiums, this will recontract you for a further 12 months. Don't be rude, at the end of the day we are in control of the system and we are not obligated to give you anything, it doesn't effect our pay. If there are no offers with regard to your DTV package, enquire about your products. HD, Line rental and Broadband. When phoning "Value" tell them that you are fully aware that the program called "Merlin" will generate an offer, no matter how small. Don't shout or scream at us, we just go outside have a fag and laugh. Also calling us at anytime of the day is irrelevant we use a locked computer system. If there isn't an offer there, 9 times out of 10 there isn't one there. Speaking to managers makes no difference and threatening to cancel won't wash with "Value" and soon enough offers will become a thing of the past. Sky are catching on. This process might not work if you are a contiunal "offer rider" if you ring up every few months this course of action might not work, the more offers we select in "Merlin" the less that are likely to populate in the future. To get in contact with "Value" choose the "downgrade" option on the telephone. This will only work if you currently don't have an offer on your account.

Happy Hunting

Your favorite Sky mole.

I can confirm this.

There are currently 3 departments dealing within cancellations atm. The value team who are piloting a new scheme where if you want an offer you have to basically take something else on and they will apply an offer to give you more "value" from the package rather than a straight up discount.

Retentions functioning on an old system where offers are given to retain and nothing else(currently where all the reductions over the phone are coming from)(these guys are outsource and will eventually be on the value system).

An then theres an outbound team which deal with the better 50% off for 6/12M(no contract) or 6 months free(12 month contract) deals who will only contact you after cancelling if they are still interested in having you as a customer that is.

Sky unfortunately is catching on the offer sky wants to give to folk in front line atm is 25% off tv package for 3 months or 20% off for 6 months over the phone anyways.

savvy12

Hi,

Ive heard lots of people talk about being able to get sky to reduce your bill by ringing and complaining, but how exactly does this work? does anyone have any advise?

I tried to do this with my movie pacakge 6 months ago and was surprised when they just rolled over and cancelled it (i was gutted truth be told!)

ive recently re-added it, but am having the same crisis of value conscience, so ideally id like to keep the channels, but pay less.

Tips anyone?