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

jazzthedog

steerpiker wrote: »

I've been sent an offer by Virgin to switch from Sky to their new TiVo service. It does look like a wonderful deal. Free TiVo box installation & activation and a bundle of 160 channels, (XL) 10Mb broadband (L) & phone (M) all for £41 a month.
But Virgin do talk the talk and I switched from them to Sky a few years ago when Sky & Virgin fell out and I could not watch my favourite programmes.
I currently pay £52 for Sky World (including Sky Sports and Movies) and £15 with Pipex (soon to be Talk Talk) including land line (this will go up to £22 in November). My contract runs out in March.
On paper, it looks good to switch to the Virgin bundle, but, to be honest, I am happy with Sky. Never had a problem with Customer service and when my Sky+ box broke, it was replaced quickly.
I am definitely thinking of switching broadband when the contract runs out. But should I go for this Virgin Bundle? There's a little voice telling me that it's too good to be true and there's a catch.

I have the same offer, unfortunately you have to add £13.90 line rental to the £41.00 making it £54.90, still a good offer though, includes a free V HD box

Flyboy152

jazzthedog wrote: »

steerpiker wrote: »

I've been sent an offer by Virgin to switch from Sky to their new TiVo service. It does look like a wonderful deal. Free TiVo box installation & activation and a bundle of 160 channels, (XL) 10Mb broadband (L) & phone (M) all for £41 a month.
But Virgin do talk the talk and I switched from them to Sky a few years ago when Sky & Virgin fell out and I could not watch my favourite programmes.
I currently pay £52 for Sky World (including Sky Sports and Movies) and £15 with Pipex (soon to be Talk Talk) including land line (this will go up to £22 in November). My contract runs out in March.
On paper, it looks good to switch to the Virgin bundle, but, to be honest, I am happy with Sky. Never had a problem with Customer service and when my Sky+ box broke, it was replaced quickly.
I am definitely thinking of switching broadband when the contract runs out. But should I go for this Virgin Bundle? There's a little voice telling me that it's too good to be true and there's a catch.

I have the same offer, unfortunately you have to add £13.90 line rental to the £41.00 making it £54.90, still a good offer though, includes a free V HD box

Can you post a link to that offer, it sounds great.

pandy12

Hi i have moved to an area that has a really poor digital signal so unfortunately cannot use my freeview box which was also a hard drive, we have been without tv for 4 months now! The house we are living in used to have cable tv before but we are not sure what type, anyway we already have a phone line and broadband with plusnet and we are in a years contract with them. I am wondering if anyone can advise on the basic tv packages that either sky or virgin do, we do not want anything fancy just the basic packages, any offers that people know about e.g cashback etc would useful too and tips for haggling, ps hope i have posted this in the right place thanks in advance pandy.

steerpiker

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Can you post a link to that offer, it sounds great.

It's
http://shop.virginmedia.com/digital-tv/skyswitcher3.html?buspart=DM_128

Chimpofdoom

Well just off the phone to sky, didnt threaten to leave, just said i'd like to cut costs are there any offers on my account and got 25% off for 12 months...

Not bad for no work!

johnson293

Think I will ring Sky soon, and see if I can get them to *lower the TV/Movie cost at all.

Got the movies on about 5 months ago on a 'half price for 3 months' offer, and I'm now paying the full £16/month for them. While we don't watch them too much, they are nice to have (especially with christmas coming up), so if I can get a further reduction to keep them on I will, or just let them remove them from my package.

Am also considering an alternative as taking Virgin TV on its own, as Sky Unlimited BB and Talk package with evening weekends and calls only costs £22.25 incl. line rental, which is more expensive for the equivalent with Virgin.

So was considering losing the Sky TV and keeping the Phone/BB, and taking TV on its own with Virgin, which is slightly more than Sky for the 'basic' package @ £25/month, but includes HD channels and catch up TV for £30.50/month.

* EDIT: Changed 'drop' to 'lower' - didn't mean I wanted them to give me them for free, just possibly lower the cost!

Chimpofdoom

johnson293 wrote: »

Think I will ring Sky soon, and see if I can get them to drop the TV/Movie cost at all.

Got the movies on about 5 months ago on a 'half price for 3 months' offer, and I'm now paying the full £16/month for them. While we don't watch them too much, they are nice to have (especially with christmas coming up), so if I can get a further reduction to keep them on I will, or just let them remove them from my package.

Am also considering an alternative as taking Virgin TV on its own, as Sky Unlimited BB and Talk package with evening weekends and calls only costs £22.25 incl. line rental, which is more expensive for the equivalent with Virgin.

So was considering losing the Sky TV and keeping the Phone/BB, and taking TV on its own with Virgin, which is slightly more than Sky for the 'basic' package @ £25/month, but includes HD channels and catch up TV for £30.50/month.

After talking to a sky rep a while ago, he said it works out cheaper to take out Movies and sports together.. arguably it may cost more, but you could ask if they had offers on taking out the full package.
If not cut the chord and go for the basic..

Which is what I plan on doing once winter is finished.. cutting it down to the basic channels.

slaphead52

I recieved through the post a leaflet for the TIVO BOX deals its says "FREE ACTIVATION" in big letters BUT when you look in the small print (and its REALLY small) there is a £49.95 installation fee. I phoned to querry this and was initially told there is no way of waiving this fee. I then searched on line for deals and if you are a new customer you get activation and installation free. I phoned again and asked for disconections pointed this out to a nice man in Liverpool and hey presto I got the fee waived .IT really pays to talk!!:beer:

muchacho

slaphead52 wrote: »

I recieved through the post a leaflet for the TIVO BOX deals its says "FREE ACTIVATION" in big letters BUT when you look in the small print (and its REALLY small) there is a £49.95 installation fee. I phoned to querry this and was initially told there is no way of waiving this fee. I then searched on line for deals and if you are a new customer you get activation and installation free. I phoned again and asked for disconections pointed this out to a nice man in Liverpool and hey presto I got the fee waived .IT really pays to talk!!:beer:

Any monthly cost for the TIVO box, or is that waived too?

We have 2 x V+ boxes and would love 2 TIVO boxes.

Did you need to sign a new 12 month contract or anything like that?

devilchef

helenbolland wrote: »

HI

I am moving house and looking to get digital tv. In the area I can get Sky or BT Vision. I have never come across BT vision does it have the same channels as Sky and Virgin? The channels I like are Sky One, Universal, Sky Atlantic and SyFy they are the ones I watch the most. So I know with Sky I would just need bthe package that is about 20quid a month. I am tied into BT for another 9 months for my broadband and phonecalls so at the moment this is just purely for digital tv provision although when my contract is up with BT I will be leaving the rip off merchants

Any advice would be great. Thanks

I have had both and at the mo i am with sky, dont go with virgin, they are crap! (thats my personal opinion)
BT vision is good in some ways such as having whole series of many different tv programs already installed and having the ability to pay as you go i suppose you could call it, by that i mean you can pay aditionally for watching movies, extra tv programs etc. But you dont get Sky1 or atlantic as far as im aware.
Sky is far superior for my family and although we miss not having many prerecorded series on our sky box, there is alot more choice available for you to watch and choose from, you can record 2 programs and watch another, you also have the sky anytime feature which changes regularly, it has several catagories movies, docs, news, sports, kids entertainment etc go
if your a new customer, go through http://www.topcashback.co.uk/home and sign up to the website, very simple and easy and of course free, once you have joined just type in sky into the search box and click on the get cashback near the top of the screen to get £101 cash back as a new customer (sky+) a £25 M&S voucher, ideal for Xmas soon. I cant seem t find many decent BT vision offers im afraid, i think this could be your best bet.