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

mira666

Ar_Kidda wrote: »

Pushed for a better deal but was told that because of a 'guy called Martin the Moneysaver' Sky, Virgin and BT are no longer offering 50% discounts'. The best he could do was 25% off.

Ah well.

After everyone jumps for the 50% discount, and Martin tells people to call and get it, can we really be surprised when it disappears?

aprice84

Called Sky earlier tonight and, as another poster mentioned earlier, I stated a false Virgin 50% offer for 6 months.

Got put through to a very nice Scottish advisor who said that they use a specialist price comparison website made specifically for Sky, Virign & BT to see what company suits you best. It is judged on what your current overall package is.

She kept mentioning that going over to Virign would cost me loads more in the long run in spite of 6 months 50% offer. Took about 5/10minutes of her seemingly hoping I would leave empty handed before she offered the 12 months 25% off TV package offer, which I accepted.

And as mentioned above, she said Sky have withdrawn the 6 month 50% offer.

Spiggle

nathanhill69 wrote: »

... however having my Broadband and Telephony with Sky I really didn't want to risk issues with cancellation orders going through to these two services as they are rock solid. It's probably worth people bearing in mind that if you have these services and go down the cancellation route in pursuit of an enhanced offer you possibly could lose your Broadband and/or telephone service and then have to wait for them to be reinstated as third party companies, namely BT, are involved (Cancelling and reinstating a TV service is much easier and doesn't have any knock on effect). TBH the reason Sky offer customers multi services is to reduce customer churn rate so guess their strategy works. ...

Hi nathan,

I was given a scare story by Sky quite some time ago when I first considered switching. I was told that if I switched my telephone away from them I would 'probably' lose my telephone number. (There is a post way back where another poster highlighted it was a good scare tactic!) It did make me delay a bit but worked to my advantage as by the time I got around to considering switching the phone and broadband BT had very good offers on. I also checked thoroughly with BT that there would be no need to change my number (it's been the same since time immemorial!) and they would do the switch for me. I had no problems at all and now have BT phone and broadband.

Just to clarify, I did this because although BT may seem more expensive on certain deals, their anytime calls package includes calls to 0800, 08457 and similar numbers which Sky do not. As most of the calls I make are either landline (included with both) or to these type of numbers (e.g to banks etc.) my bills for calls with Sky were astronomical. Ironically, the only call charges I've had from BT are from the calls made to Sky to cancel the TV package!

I hope that helps someone when they also get the scare tactic from Sky.

All the best,
Spigs

nathanhill69

Spiggle wrote: »

Hi nathan,

I was given a scare story by Sky quite some time ago when I first considered switching. I was told that if I switched my telephone away from them I would 'probably' lose my telephone number. (There is a post way back where another poster highlighted it was a good scare tactic!) It did make me delay a bit but worked to my advantage as by the time I got around to considering switching the phone and broadband BT had very good offers on. I also checked thoroughly with BT that there would be no need to change my number (it's been the same since time immemorial!) and they would do the switch for me. I had no problems at all and now have BT phone and broadband.

Just to clarify, I did this because although BT may seem more expensive on certain deals, their anytime calls package includes calls to 0800, 08457 and similar numbers which Sky do not. As most of the calls I make are either landline (included with both) or to these type of numbers (e.g to banks etc.) my bills for calls with Sky were astronomical. Ironically, the only call charges I've had from BT are from the calls made to Sky to cancel the TV package!

I hope that helps someone when they also get the scare tactic from Sky.

All the best,
Spigs

In my case there wasn't any scare tactic, if they tried the "possibly loose your phone number" line with me they would have got the short shrift. In my case it was more to do with when you cancel Broadband and Telephony work orders have to be sent out to BT to change your line from Sky's LLU equipment - if they go ahead it can be a nightmare trying to rectify the situation to bring the services back to Sky - i.e outage of services whilst everything is sorted out. Only having to think in terms of a Sky TV package it's literally just a keyboard press at Sky to "re-connect" your receiver. Obviously I've never seen wether it gets to the stage where work orders for this work are processed before any enhanced offer is proffered by Sky but my BB connection is solid as a rock and I can't afford to loose it and ultimately I actually don't want to leave Sky (Where would I be without Sky Atlantic and a fast and reliable BB connection).

As far as packages go I did the maths for my situation and Sky work out best as we rarely use the home phone for calls. The other deal breaker for me is Sky's unlimited Broadband which is truly unlimited with no traffic management and just £7.50 per month if taken with Sky's telephone line rental.

leeegglestone

Does anyone have a number to ring sky, i cant for the life of me find one of the website.
Im an old customer, only get the free stuff, so probably classed as a new customer.
Keep getting letters from BT through the door so wanna see what sky are prepared to offer me

Heinz

If you go via Quidco, there's a £100 cashback offer which expires in a few hours for taking out a Sky+ subscription (+£25 M&S voucher from Sky).

Most of Quidco's otheroffers require you to take Sky broadband too.

mjmal51

leeegglestone wrote: »

Does anyone have a number to ring sky, i cant for the life of me find one of the website.
Im an old customer, only get the free stuff, so probably classed as a new customer.
Keep getting letters from BT through the door so wanna see what sky are prepared to offer me

Used 08442410266 back in July which I found on this forum. Cannot understand why they make it so difficult to find their tel number, especially as it is a premium rate.

Heinz

All Sky's numbers are now 0844 money-making numbers but those at www.saynoto0870.com continue to try to offer cheaper or free alternatives.

For example, an alternative for their main 0844 241 4141 number may be 020 7126 7020 or, better still, it may be 0800 046 6434.

Personally, I'd try the 0800 number from my landline.

However, Sky like making money so they regularly disconnect published alternatives to their 0844 numbers.

Ignition

borokat wrote: »

Just called Virgin to try and get a discount or additional service added - have been a customer for 5 years paying £42ish for XL TV, M broadband and phone line rental. Asked if I could upgrade to Tivo etc and was just told it would be £49.95 and then £3 per month. Think I will get OH to ring them he is much tougher than me!

I see that a member on another forum has received the TiVo for free, it's now offered to existing customers as standard instead of their V+HD box, he managed to get them to agree to replace his V+HD free of charge.

It took him a while but he got there in the end. Sadly can't include a link but was on Cableforum this was mentioned.

Gus1855

We have had standard Sky TV with the Sky World Package for about 5-6 years and I am about to buy a new HD TV, so would like SKY HD+ of course.

Going on thier website it suggests it will set me back a one off charge of £109 to change. This seems pretty steep given they will be a 12 month tie in.

Has anyone had any experience with getting a better offer than this through retentions?

Also, this is under my landlords name, so he would have to do the haggling for us. If he cancelled it, then I got a new account under my name would that mean i could get it at a better rate?