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

DragonQ

choppersangel wrote: »

Threatened possible move to TalkTalk, with general enquiry about pricing, and whether on contract or not. Have been offered all existing package for £12 less per month, on 12 month contract. Saves hassle of new email addresses, phone No. etc etc. Worth a pop. Have been with BT for donks and this seems like a 'good enough' deal financially, together with reduction of faff. Cool, We say haggle away!
:T

Are you sure it's a 12 month contract? I was told I'd be put on a 12 month contract when I agreed to a discounted price for BT Infinity, but when the confirmation e-mail came through it said 18 months. I called them and the guy basically said that it should be 18 months and that he'd "do me a favour" and change it to 12 months because he "believed me".

rhys

pieeta wrote: »

Offered me same broadband, line rental, free calls anytime, 100 minutes of free calls to mobiles and 0845 numbers etc. plus a TiVo box and basic tv package for £30 per month. Free installation of the box also.

This sounds a lot like the 'multi talk triple' deal that I was offered (30Mb broadband, XL anytime calls to landlines, plus 150 minutes to 0845/mobiles, and keeping the 500GB TiVo box I already had). They threw in free caller display for me too and they offered the whole lot for £30 a month.

I declined it though because the TV package was very basic (I'd have had to lose all the Sky channels, GOLD etc, and end up with something roughly equivalent to Freeview; I think this must have been the old M package that they used to offer but isn't advertised on their website any more). Nevertheless, it was an excellent deal for £30/month. 'Multi talk triple' seem to be the magic words to say to customer relations if you'd like to have it yourself.

In the end I dropped my broadband down to 30Mb (saving £5/month), paid the line rental upfront for a year (saving another £5/month over 12 months), and got other loyalty discounts of about £8/month or so, which took my total price down to £39/month on a new 12 month contract. I was paying £56.24/month so that's saving me over £200 for the year. I was happy with that, because it's a similar price to BT's 38Mb Infinity+YouView package but with more TV channels.

I'm not sure whether it'll help anyone else, but it was pointing out the difference in price between BT's Infinity+YouView packages and Virgin's broadband+TiVo packages that managed to get me the deal, I think. Doing my homework helped this time.

stphnstevey

We have Sky TV - can I cancel and my wife sign up as a new customer? (we can then get Quidco)

I phoned Sky and the were quite elusive - they said it would need to be a new name on the account and bank details - but suggested this wasn't looked on very favourably

KTF

stphnstevey wrote: »

We have Sky TV - can I cancel and my wife sign up as a new customer? (we can then get Quidco)

No. Has been asked many times before.

mike_paterson

Day 1 with no Sky TV for the first time in 22 years.

YouView in one room and freesat in another have pretty much everything covered!

xman

mike_paterson wrote: »

Day 1 with no Sky TV for the first time in 22 years

Last year I cancelled sky and they called me offering 12 months half price... the MSE forums were full of happy people reporting success stories...
This year the forum is rather quiet, the advisor could not extend the offer so I have given notice... lets see if they call again... otherwise...

mike_paterson

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

There is no pattern. It depends on numerous factors unique to the individual account.

So there is a pattern then, it is just that we do not know it

xman

mike_paterson wrote: »

So there is a pattern then, it is just that we do not know it

Lets see if we can gather something then:
I called and cancelled telling them that I would not be able to afford Sky once the half price offer would end - I left the broadband/landline active. I had the full pack with sportsd and movies.
So far, Sky sent me a "sorry you are leaving" letter with a disconnection date and an email survey.
The TV service is still active for another 20 days, in the meantime I am also considering changing landline/broadband provider as I see there are very good deals out there...

custardy

xman wrote: »

Lets see if we can gather something then:
I called and cancelled telling them that I would not be able to afford Sky once the half price offer would end - I left the broadband/landline active. I had the full pack with sportsd and movies.
So far, Sky sent me a "sorry you are leaving" letter with a disconnection date and an email survey.
The TV service is still active for another 20 days, in the meantime I am also considering changing landline/broadband provider as I see there are very good deals out there...

well I was only with them for TV
they know I use VM for BB/phone
cited cost as the issue
no contact during my cancellation or after end of service(15/3/13)

eternalvictor

Just thought I'd share my success with Sky. My half price offer was ending on 18th April so I phoned up on 18th March to give my months notice of cancellation in the hope of seeing what they wanted to offer to keep me. I had the full Sky TV with Sports & Movies but no HD and this was costing me £27.50 a month. I also added multi-room some time ago and was getting this at £2.50 a month.

Told them I did not want to keep Sky if I had to pay the normal price as the half price offer was the only reason I kept Sky last year as I was happy to cancel before being offered 50% off everything.

After speaking to the lady on the phone for about half hour all I was offered was a way of getting my bill to about £38 a month with no offers and just removing the movies so I went ahead with the cancellation and was happy to cope without Sky if I got offered nothing.

I phoned them up a couple of days ago just to check that the cancellation was still going ahead and also to check what I needed to do to get the Freeview channels on my Sky boxes once I had been deactivated.

The guy I spoke to asked why I was leaving and told him I had been offered nothing to make me stay with Sky and I was happy to cope without it. After looking at my account he thought it was strange I hadn't been offered anything and said it looked like there was an offer available so he went away for 20 minutes to check the account and came back and offered me 50% off for the year again on a 12 month contract. Seeing as this was all I was after anyway I happily agreed and will get my Sports & Movies again for £30 a month for the year with my multi-room.

Thought I'd try my luck about getting a new box for my multi-room subscription as my current 2nd box is about 5 years old and quite loud for the bedroom. Got told initially that the box would cost £300 although he might be able to get it for £215.

Then he had a look and came back and told me if I cancelled my multi-room subscription and then started a new multi-room subscription I would be able to get a brand new box for £5. And all I would pay extra is about £3/4 for the remaining part of my current months multi-room subscription.

Needless to say I went for this and get my new box delivered Monday so for the sake of sticking to my guns about being happy to cope without Sky unless I got offered something to make me stay with them I have managed to get 50% off the top Sky package and also got a new multi-room box for £5 so I'm pretty happy with that.