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

teddysmum

studentsaver_88 wrote: »

Currently on 50% Family pack deal and paid line rental upfront. I was paying £3.75 for BB . Gave notice on tv as they could only offer discount however I am staying with them for phone and broadband. New 12 month contract free max broadband and line-rental £140 for the year. Not fussed about losing the TV to be honest. I have a free sat recorder. V happy with broadband and phone deal as pretty competitive and no hassle of moving.

Do you mean the broadband is free and the line rental £140 paid in advance ? If so, beware, as line rental saver has ended, but some call centre people have still taken payment. The customer was then, also, charged the normal monthly rate and the block payment refunded.


Did they mention the loss of the £2.50 discount made for having tv, which means a £2.50 supplement to pay, without tv ?

Captain89

AbbieCadabra wrote: »

i thought that a lot depends on if you really have a viable alternative to sky? we're not in a cabled area so can't get Virgin, offering from BT is very poor & not comparable to what we've had with Sky for the past 16 years or so - obviously Sky know this, we've had some discounts in the past but nothing like the amounts people on here get offered, but then they've been in cabled areas.

this is why i'm so wary of going down the disconnect route, i'm sure we wouldn't get offered anything, even if we went through the full process (which i don't really want to do & OH would kill me if he lost any sports! ).

Nah that doesn't matter too much. I imagine alot of people leave sky to cut costs not because they feel BT or Virgin are better. Sky wanna keep churn down and that means offering those who wanna leave incentives to stay( Big Discounts). You have to cancel or they will not believe you really plan to go.

I don't have cable in my area and I'm on my 3 years of 50%+ off . Without any offers my sky bill would be £87 pm but I'm currently paying £24 pm for 12 months. If I couldn't get these types of offers I wouldn't pay for sky TV period. I love football but I'd be fine streaming the games on my laptop if it ment I had to pay £60 + pm just for the tv package.

Don't be afraid to cancel. Worst that could happen is that you don't get offered the deal you want. In that case you just call up and have sky back on within minutes.

Tropez

AbbieCadabra wrote: »

i thought that a lot depends on if you really have a viable alternative to sky? we're not in a cabled area so can't get Virgin, offering from BT is very poor & not comparable to what we've had with Sky for the past 16 years or so - obviously Sky know this, we've had some discounts in the past but nothing like the amounts people on here get offered, but then they've been in cabled areas.

this is why i'm so wary of going down the disconnect route, i'm sure we wouldn't get offered anything, even if we went through the full process (which i don't really want to do & OH would kill me if he lost any sports! ).

It doesn't matter too much whether Virgin is available or not.

A lot of people do have a viable offering anyway - you can get both Amazon and Netflix for about £12 a month and then stick BT Sport on top of that for £15 a month (for HD, £12 without) and you're still cheaper than Sky's basic offering since you have to pay extra for HD on Sky (although they rolled it into some new package to disguise that) and both Amazon and Netflix will give you HD for free if your connection can support it.

Now, the truth is you don't have to do that but it doesn't hurt your position if you're aware of that. I'm not in a cabled area, I got 50% off for 12 months and whenever they asked why I was leaving I provided the above and that my main reason for having Sky was the sports because I could get TV shows and films other ways.

You've nothing to lose by cancelling. They might let the cancellation go through and you might be without Sky for a few days and if no offer is forthcoming you might just have to bite the bullet and ask to resub - which they'll do for you and you'll be back up and running in minutes.

Victamond

I called sky today and threatened (with a smile) to take my business to BT (I've been out of contract for a while) I managed to reduce the monthly charge for HD+, Fibre optic broadband, phone line - free weekend calls, and family TV package from £66.00 (so expensive) to £45 per month. I am happy with the discount, and it didn't take long at all!

dusty64

Tropez wrote: »

Ten days before my TV is due to go off they sent me an email offering 35% off TV for 12 months.

Phoned them up and said I was calling about an email they sent. I didn't mention the 35% figure.

Got offered 50% off TV for 12 months and with a bit of haggling they've allowed me to have the 50% off fibre deal on top for having Sky Sports.

Doesn't include multiroom subscriptions though but I took the offer. Cuts my bill down nicely.

Not sure if it's a case of ask for 35% and you'll get that but 50% is on the system for them to offer or what but if you do get such an email, I highly recommend if you call them not to mention the 35% figure.

Which number did you ring? I tried the standard number but they still only offered the 35% off.

Edited…..Got put through to the win back team and given 50% off for the year. More than happy with that

AbbieCadabra

Captain89 wrote: »

Nah that doesn't matter too much. I imagine alot of people leave sky to cut costs not because they feel BT or Virgin are better. Sky wanna keep churn down and that means offering those who wanna leave incentives to stay( Big Discounts). You have to cancel or they will not believe you really plan to go.

I don't have cable in my area and I'm on my 3 years of 50%+ off . Without any offers my sky bill would be £87 pm but I'm currently paying £24 pm for 12 months. If I couldn't get these types of offers I wouldn't pay for sky TV period. I love football but I'd be fine streaming the games on my laptop if it ment I had to pay £60 + pm just for the tv package.

Don't be afraid to cancel. Worst that could happen is that you don't get offered the deal you want. In that case you just call up and have sky back on within minutes.

Tropez wrote: »

It doesn't matter too much whether Virgin is available or not.

A lot of people do have a viable offering anyway - you can get both Amazon and Netflix for about £12 a month and then stick BT Sport on top of that for £15 a month (for HD, £12 without) and you're still cheaper than Sky's basic offering since you have to pay extra for HD on Sky (although they rolled it into some new package to disguise that) and both Amazon and Netflix will give you HD for free if your connection can support it.

Now, the truth is you don't have to do that but it doesn't hurt your position if you're aware of that. I'm not in a cabled area, I got 50% off for 12 months and whenever they asked why I was leaving I provided the above and that my main reason for having Sky was the sports because I could get TV shows and films other ways.

You've nothing to lose by cancelling. They might let the cancellation go through and you might be without Sky for a few days and if no offer is forthcoming you might just have to bite the bullet and ask to resub - which they'll do for you and you'll be back up and running in minutes.

thanks both really appreciate your replies.

definitely given me something to think about! think i'd feel more comfortable trying to bargain with sky now knowing i can quote what we'd be looking at as alternative providers.

paying over £100 p/mth at the minute (sky world/HD/Multiroom/Fibre/Phone), so something needs to be discounted!

Tropez

AbbieCadabra wrote: »

thanks both really appreciate your replies.

definitely given me something to think about! think i'd feel more comfortable trying to bargain with sky now knowing i can quote what we'd be looking at as alternative providers.

paying over £100 p/mth at the minute (sky world/HD/Multiroom/Fibre/Phone), so something needs to be discounted!

Glad to have helped and you should be able to get some discounts.

Without any discounts my bill would be more than twice the amount it is now and that would be over £100 per month.

Jikkie

I don't think you have to quote alternative providers. We aren't ever going to be cabled here either. I just waffled and stuck to my guns about "tv has become proportionately expensive for my budger". And wriggled when they suggested I cut out this and that.... said I wanted what we already had, or nothing. You don't need to have done a lot of homework, just know what the likely possible outcome could be. Actually I thought I had shot myself in the foot, as 5 days after cancellation I had a call offering 35%, which improved to 50% and I decline. I didn't notice at the time that it was end of month and end of quarter. duh. But all came ok. I got the 50% message on the website quickly after switchoff, used livechat and ended up with 60%. Which I accepted.

kirkofski

I cancelled my SKY and there was no attempt at all to keep me, they just gave me the cancellation date.
They didn't attempt to call me either(they did last year when I cancelled), I did however see a 35% off for 12 months deal on "MySky" after I read on this thread that offers appear there.


On the first day without sky I saw the "MySky" offer had improved to 50% off for a year so spoke to sky using the online chat option and signed back up for another year.


I am paying £14 reduced from £28 for non HD without sports, just have the Entertainment package I think.

mark_steps

On the 27th of August i am able to put my notice in to leave Virgin, but to be honest, im awful at getting a great deal...I tend to stick with Virgin.

Im on a great deal, according to Virgin i will get no where near it with anyone else! And for the best part they are right, sky fibre and all other fibre is not available in the EH7 part of Edinburgh (that i know of).

Currently i get Line rental, Talk Unlimited and 100Meg Broadband for £29.49 a month! I am also unable to pay upfront the line rental for the year.

Speed is important to me, so i would consider dropping to say 60Meg, but no less.

The only reason i took Talk Unlimited was it reduced my price with Virgin, but in reality, Talk evenings and weekends would do i guess.

So, can anyone help or make suggestions based on what info i have given? Or those on the same package, what are you paying?

Thanks in advance.