MSE News: Sky and the AA are easiest to haggle with

Jools33

I was in the process of moving from B. Gas to Eon when Eon announced a rise. B Gas offered me £130 rebate over 12 months to return to them, so I am moving back. I will be on dual fuel websaver 12, was originally websaver 11. I will review the situation after I have got my £130 back in 12 months.

funfan

The Guru
wish i could haggle a deal with sky, we do not have virgin media around our area so i cant ring and say we going elsewhere?
any ideas anyone?
we have hd, multi-room and entertainment but want to add movies and maybe sports but that would push it up to 75 quid a month!!!!

You could always say that you are going to move to BT Vision or cancel all together. I often phone Sky and ask for half price deals on movies or sports, but they will only offer if the promotion is currently valid. If you take the packages then try to cancel you may get better response.

For movies I would recommend trying Love Film or similar. At most you will pay about £12 per month instead of the £20 for Sky Movies. Love film are offering a voucher code now, three months for the price of one (no long term obligation). Google "offers on film clubs" or similar and you can find all the free trials and offers available.

Sky call or email us when half price sports / movies offers are on. If they are not calling you with this then maybe call them and register your interest.

Romulus

I am a retired BT employee. Whilst working for them I had the benefit of free Broadband and a reduced line rental but as soon as I left there was an immediate hike in my monthly outgoings when the line rental was put up to the standard £11 and my Broadband to £20 for the unlimited download option. I decided to reduce the Broadband amount to £15 by opting for the 10Gb limit. This year I realised I was now paying £30 per month for limited downloads and free calls on weekends only. After looking through the MoneySavingExpert website I decided to switch to PlusNet. I applied online and contacted BT to tell them I was switching and to ask for the MAC number. I was immediately offered a cheaper deal of free weekend and evening calls with cheaper broadband for about £23 pm. I then went back to Plusnet who offered an even cheaper deal, but at this point I was determined to leave BT so called them again to attempt to obtain the MAC. This time they offered a deal of £8 for the broadband and £13 line rental, or £10 if paid a year in advance which I accepted. I now pay £18 per month but intend to use an overide number for some calls, I must make a minimum of 2 calls per month through BT. When I called PlusNet back to ask them to cancel my contract they immediately offered to undercut that deal, but by then I had already signed up to another year with BT.

Pmarmalade

My advice for anyone new to this is this:

Arm yourself with the knowledge of the best competitor deas. If you're with AA look at RAC prices, Sky vs Virgin etc. but not only that look at their Quidco cashback. All of the telephone sales/retentions departments will be well aware of the latest Quidco rates. They can either match/better it or you leave. I find this is especially true for phone contracts as Vodafone, O2 etc. are often doing massive cashback rates via Quidco.

Monstaswifey

Never thought I would say it but DAMN YOU MSE!

Myself and my colleague are about to have our 6 months 1/2 price sky deal run out and both rang indepeandantly today to get it again only to be told that due to your newsletter and lots of calls they were not offering this to anyone now - so thanks very much!

You have actually cost me money now as last week when I rang they said they would have no porblem extending it but it couldn't be processed until today - not a happy bunny to say the least!

deanaz

I was originally on a £10 a month sim only deal with virgin mobile (300 mins and 300 texts). I saw a better offer with tesco for the same price which included 600 mins 600 texts and 1gb internet. Called virgin to see if they could reduce my monthly deal.

They were very helpful and I ended up with 600 mins 1000 texts and 1gb Internet for only £7.50 per month. Very pleased.

arlestonrob

Our 18 month Vigin package is nearly due to finish, so we spoke to the Sky salesman in our local mall the other day to find out how much they would charge to match our existing package. It would have been a bit cheaper, but would have meant a bit of inconvenience with new phone lines being putting in and they could not guarantee we kept our current phone number.

We telephoned Virgin this morning and told them we were considering changing to Sky, and they immediately gave us a discount on our existing package (TV,inc. 2 boxes, broad band and unlimited phone calls). It is still £3 more than Sky, but we don't have to worry about inconvenience of change over.

One of our problems with the calls was that we still had to pay for 0870 numbers etc. The person at Virgin told us that if you go to a special web site you can then get the direct land line to who ever we are trying to contact.

shaun0956

I was paying £79 a month with BT for Option 3 Broadband, Free Anytime Calls and BT Vision so decided that enough was enough although I kept getting Virgin trying to say they could beat it but by the time I had added the FREE ESP I get with BT and other deals they wer no where near the price.

However I still needed to cut my monthly outgoings so decide to take Martins:money: advise and say I was going elsewhere, and I couldnt beleive, what they offered me.

They looked at what we had been using on the Broadband Option 3 for last 6 months and gave me Option 2 as that more than coverd it, same package thereafter for £37 yes £37 a month a whopping saving of £42 month just by going on a new 12month contract.

Its true once they got you, they dont give there loyal and long standing customers discounts.

Good luck to all who try, as I say they can only give 1 of 2 answers, YES OR NO, It pays to try...What have you got to loose.:beer::beer:

Ed_Jogg

arlestonrob wrote: »

One of our problems with the calls was that we still had to pay for 0870 numbers etc. The person at Virgin told us that if you go to a special web site you can then get the direct land line to who ever we are trying to contact.

That'll be saynoto0870 then! (Note that finding a landline alternative is not guaranteed, sometimes there isn't one.)

Also note that 0870 numbers (only) are included for free in Virgin's inclusive call packages.

makenix20

About two months ago my anti virus software was coming up for renewal and i telephoned their help desk and asked the lady that since i have been a loyal customer for several years what discount would i be able to get.

I was thinking perhaps about £8 off for the year but i was offered half price which i was really happy about so it pays to haggle.

Ian