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

Hershamgirl

I'm so annoyed by my rubbish offer. Don't really want to leave but cant afford £72 a month for bb, phone and variety tv with sky movies. Don't even have HD or catch up.
Gave 31 days notice on Friday after wasting an hr on live chat.
Does anyone think I'll get another offer? Don't feel hopeful. Also, where are the online offers as I can't see any?
Why do some people get brilliant offers and others get nothing? :-(

mije1983

Hershamgirl wrote: »

I'm so annoyed by my rubbish offer. Don't really want to leave but cant afford £72 a month for bb, phone and variety tv with sky movies. Don't even have HD or catch up.
Gave 31 days notice on Friday after wasting an hr on live chat.
Does anyone think I'll get another offer? Don't feel hopeful. Also, where are the online offers as I can't see any?
Why do some people get brilliant offers and others get nothing? :-(

Sometimes it's a game of chicken with Sky. Not an issue if you get cut off for the TV as it can be turned back on instantly if you decide to go back. More of an issue with phone and broadband though which can take weeks so you may want to look into moving those 2 services if you don't get an offer from Sky (or cancelling your cancellation).

Hershamgirl

I asked to cancel phone and bb but the "retentions expert" said it's better to find another company first and get them to switch me so I don't lose any internet service

Sowler

Is the Live Chat currently down for everybody else? It says they are 'changing' it so I just wonder if it is down or just mega busy. As it is saying 'busy please wait.'

audigex

It's working for me as of 13:30 today

And they're offering around 50% off TV and line rental as a new customer... still waiting for the Fibre discount if there is one.

It baffles me how some get amazing deals and others get basically told to shut up. I've no idea if it depends where in the month you are or whether there's some metric as to whether you're popular customer. As a new customer 18 months ago (It wasn't in my own name, so I get to be a new customer again now) we weren't getting anything resembling this deal.

Maybe they just have some way of estimating how profitable you're likely to be in future or whether you're actually likely to leave.

Or maybe you just get better deals if in a Virgin TV area....

---

Edit:

Price is coming back as

£108 without discount
£62 with discount (+£10 deposit/up front + £6 on the first bill)

For:

Fibre Unlimited (40Mb)
Weekend calls + line rental (which I never use but are needed for the Fibre)

And then I believe pretty much everything on the TV package:
Family + kids HD
Sport HD
Movies HD

Installation
Equipment (just the basic hub + sky box)
£100 voucher

I think the only main things I missed were multi-room and the 80Mb fibre upgrade, neither of which I have much use for.

Not bad, considering I was paying £66 7 months ago for the same without Movies or Sport, so basically I'm getting a £5 discount plus sport+movies both in HD and £100 up front. I could probably have done better, but I'm happy enough with that as I was expecting to pay £20-30 for fibre alone.

Now I just need a TV... whoops! I do have a projector, in my defence.

Rev

audigex wrote: »

It's working for me as of 13:30 today

And they're offering around 50% off TV and line rental as a new customer... still waiting for the Fibre discount if there is one.

It baffles me how some get amazing deals and others get basically told to shut up. I've no idea if it depends where in the month you are or whether there's some metric as to whether you're popular customer. As a new customer 18 months ago (It wasn't in my own name, so I get to be a new customer again now) we weren't getting anything resembling this deal.

Maybe they just have some way of estimating how profitable you're likely to be in future or whether you're actually likely to leave.

Or maybe you just get better deals if in a Virgin TV area....

What I find astonishing is just how much of a mark up sky make.

My last deal with Sky before leaving this time last year was 60% off their basic package (I don't watch movies or sport) so £13.20 a month. Obviously they wouldn't have given me this if it meant they lost money so they must have been still making a profit. Yet the basic package at full price, which I imagine the majority of people pay, not realising they can get such deals is around £33.

And we've seen from this thread some are paying almost £100 for the full package. Movies, sport, HD etc.

When you think about it like that you realise just how rip off sky actually is.

I don't think Sky check if Virgin are in your area. Soon as Sky released fibre broadband I used it to get a cheaper deal on my VM broadband. It's worked every year. I call, tell them sky fibre is cheaper etc. Yet sky fibre still isn't available in my area.

Just be persistent and be prepared to be cut off if they don't offer you the deal you want.

audigex

haha I wasn't quite serious about the checking if VM are in the area - just that I wonder if they have hidden metrics to decide whether to offer a discount

Personally I suspect it's down to timing and whether they have targets to hit. For example today on the live chat the advisor couldn't wait to offer me discounts - even after I said I wasn't really looking for a discount today, just the full price pricing she was still offering 50% discounts. I think my final price is over 50% off TV and line rental, full price internet.

At the same time, I'm perfectly happy to cancel the TV in 12 months if they don't give me a discount. I'll sign back up again once they offer me another discount. The internet is the only requirement for me, TV is a bonus.

Hershamgirl

Just had a weird call from sky. They asked for me by name which I confirmed, then he said he was calling from sky then mumbled something and hung up! This was about 45 mins ago and not heard anything since.
Not holding out hope they're gonna offer me anything near what I want to stay with them.

brewerdave

Hershamgirl wrote: »

Just had a weird call from sky. They asked for me by name which I confirmed, then he said he was calling from sky then mumbled something and hung up! This was about 45 mins ago and not heard anything since.
Not holding out hope they're gonna offer me anything near what I want to stay with them.

...or it MIGHT be one of these firms pretending to be Sky in order to get you to take up a "maintenance" contract on your dish/box.
I've had two such calls in the last week after none for several years.:)

jenc410

All, I just wanted to share my recent success in switching our Sky account to my name (from my husband's) so that we could benefit from the New Customer deal.


I wanted to use the MSE 40% deal but went onto sky chat to first check that it was allowed (to create a new account in my name even though we have sky in my husbands name). I was told that it was fine, that I was a new customer (as I hadn't had sky myself in over 12 months).


When I told him that I had the 40% deal so would do it online he said that he could offer me a 50% deal for 12 months if I did it through the chat with him - even better!


He talked me through it all online, and to get around already being a customer he told me to manually enter my address with 00 before our number (rather than using the auto find as that comes up and says "you seem to be a customer already etc etc").


I was able to pick an installation date just over a month away so that when we cancel my husbands package we don't have a gap, and then my husband phoned Sky and cancelled our current package.


So now i'm getting the variety pack for £14 per month for the next 12 months, and you get to choose a reward of either £100 Mastercard/M&S/Tesco or a Galaxy Tab 4

and on top of that, I clicked through topcashback to sky page before clicking the link sent to me from the Sky Chat and so that tracked at another £121! Not a bad morning's work! Hope this helps someone else!