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

donal_f

I'm currently with eDF. I check my gas & electricity 3 or 4 times a year to make sure I'm on the cheapest tariff. The last couple of years, if there has been a cheaper deal, its been a new tarrif from eDF.

So, I've simply called and said I was planning to switch providers, but noticed they had a cheaper tariff available and I would consider staying if I could switch to it. They've switched me over without any hesitation.

bengy99

I have Sky Sports only because I need Sky World for 3D TV. I am not interested in Sports and Sky 3D is very repetitive. So I phoned up and asked for Sky Sports to be removed. Immediately I got a 20% reduction on the Sky Movies/Sky Sports package deal saving me £10.40 per month for the next 6 months, and I still have Sky 3D.
I was told to ring back in 6 months time and see if this offer can be extended or if there are any new offers available. The operator agreed that you should be able to get Sky 3D for a small fee without having to purchase Sky Sports.

AnnieFE

I had quite a good result with t-mobile. I wanted to change from my pay as you go (with a t-mobile contract) and change my old phone to a newer model, so I decided to get a monthly contract. I did quite a bit of research beforehand and compared prices of different phones. I saw one which I liked advertised for a certain price at O2 and gave t-mobile a call to see if they could offer me the same deal. I did say to them that I've seen the offer at O2 and that I was prepared to leave t-mobile but as I've never had any problems with them (and been with them for probably the last 10-15 years) that I would like to stay with them if I could get the same deal. They did, and I'm really happy with it now.

Kittenonthekeys

Thought it was worth giving it a go with Virgin ...........
Pleased with the service but having been with them on the same package for 4 years, rang CS to ask what they could offer me to improve my BB/Phone/TV package because I really would prefer to stay with Virgin but had seen a better deal on Sky, so would be tempted to leave if they couldn't better it....
CS put me straight through to Retentions who took me through each section of Sky's deal, telling me it wasn't as good it seemed, to which I replied that's as maybe but I'll still go for it if you can't improve the package I'm on......and this is what I got - and I accepted:-

Old deal
Broadband (L) 10mb speed unlimited
Phone (M) - free weekend calls to landlines, not inc. 0845 / 0870 numbers
Basic TV (M)

New deal
Broadband (L) 10mb speed unlimited
Phone (L) free unlimited calls to landlines & Virgin mobiles; 250 free minutes to 0845 / 0870 numbers
TV (M+) extra channels; £40 waiver of installation fee for Tivo box and £3.00 per month waiver of Tivo box rental (I tried to get Tivo box for nothing but had to pay £49.95 one-off fee as they wouldn't budge on that.)

Really pleased with all that for only £4pm extra! It does seem like each advisor can use their own discretion so if one says no, it's worth calling back later and speaking to someone else. I hate haggling and it took me months to pluck up the courage to do it, but if you don't ask.........

:T

Toonie

I've been with Orange since I first got a mobile ten years ago and I had a fairly good student contract with them, but my phone started dying, so I did a little research and figured out which phone I wanted, how many minutes/texts etc I wanted and called them up. My first call I simply said "I want XXX" and they said unfortunately they couldn't do that, even though I reminded them of my loyalty over the years. They made me a good offer (an HTC Wildfire, 500 mins, 1000 texts 250Mb internet for £25/month) but not good enough so I said I'd have to think about it.

Three days later I got a phone call from them asking how I've found the customer service recently (not sure if this is one of their tactics) and I said it's been excellent as it always has, if only they could do a little more for their long-standing customers and the lady said "let me see what I can do". Over the next half hour, where we started chatting about Newcastle (where my family are from and where the Orange call centre is based) we managed to have a friendly haggle that resulted in me getting an HTC Desire HD with 500 mins, unlimted texts, 500mb internet for £22 a month. With this deal, I should have paid £200 for the phone, but she waived the charge as I was a loyal customer, she also threw in next day delivery and as it was the beginning of the month, she added free internet onto my existing contract until the end of the month so I could start using my phone straight away.

Altogether an extremely successful call

stickgal

Last year I received my car ins. renewal notice. I have an old nail for a car so I was looking at Breakdown Insurance anyway. I trawled the comparison sites to make sure I was getting the best deal (as usual), but my renewal was indeed cheapest. I then did the same for a new breakdown cover included in the insurance, and again as a seperate purchase. The average additional cost was approx an additonal 100 quid. I called my car insurance, and told them I was looking at renewal, but really wanted breakdown too. The sales guy offered to reduce my car insurance renewal by the cost of breakdown cover, so basically I got it for free.:)
This year, I received my car ins. renewal notice from Hastings Essentials. As usual, I did the whole comparison network, but again they were the cheapest. I did the same for breakdown and it had leaped from approx 100 - to 200 quid extra. So I called Hastings renewal team, told them I had compared prices on Breakdown cover and I had a cheaper online quote for around 29.99. (this was true, but the company had awful reviews and was slated on MME). I got my breakdown premium knocked off my Car insurance again, less the 29.99 quote.

Also, when I moved house, BT wanted an extortionate amount to connect my landline on behalf of my phone provider (Talk Talk), who wanted to pass this onto me as the customer. I called my provider, and blagged half price phone up to the cost of the connection (approx 11 months). They retained my custom for the time I had half price rental, and I got the connection fee refunded eventually.:)

Always try to call these companies, tell them what a wondeful service you have had/ want/ have seen reviewed & that the only thing thats stopping you is the cost. I have found that a person on the end of the line, who I guess is paid by comission/ targets, and a bit of poliet cheek has got me loads of deals.

Good Luck!

kernow_nige

Just haggled with my insurance company (Morethan) and got it reduced by a whopping 60%......appy days.

1welshlady

Hi, I have just phoned Sky and threatened to leave. They gave me 25% of my standard package for 12 months. I also received multi room for £10.25 per month which is their standard price, however they offered me the new HD box which I would need for the multi room at £29 instead of their usual price of £199. Well worth a phone call, which was also free!!!!!!!

hpd_2

Admiral multicar policy
Admiral state that if you have 2 or more cars in your household you will get extra discount by taking out a 'multi car policy'. I did this lasyt year and the combined quote beat the individual quotes i could get anywhere else. I have just received my renewal policy (for myself and two children, boy aged 20 and girl aged 22). The total cost for all three was £2238.17. I decided to scout around and see if I could get anything cheaper with individual policies. Imagine my surprise when it was Admiral who came in cheaper! My daughter's individual policy was £310 cheaper and my sons was £180 cheaper! mine was the same. I phone Admiral who said that these anomalies sometimes happen and they couldn't explain it. However they were happy to honour the new prices and reduce my policy by £20 as a gesture of good will. I am now the owner of a multi car policy that is £500 less than originally quoted!!

sach1636

donal_f wrote: »

After reading this week's email and the above post, I called TalkTalk and said I was considering moving to Sky. After pushing him a couple of times and a consultation with his manager, he reduced my current tariff from a total of £25.40 a month to £17.10. In addtion, the new version of my tariff also includes 0845 and 0870 numbers. Very happy!

My efforts with talktalk after they provided terrible broadband service for over 3 months of initial joining period.
- plus package at half price for 12 months
- free international call boost
- free mobile boost for 6 months
- fiber optic broadband boost discounted by £5 for 6 months with free installation
:A