Only joined Virgin Media for Sky? Blag some extra channels for the loss

chriscousins

I decided to try use the 'Sky One' angle to get Setanta for free. VM wouldn't entertain that, but they did give us a reduction for 6 months based on TV XL (Which we have) and only charge us for TV M. Think we'll save about £12 per month.

Will try again in 6 months :):)

mdeizza

Virgin Media are playing nice even if you aren't on the TV packages. I have been an ntl customer for 7 years, originally phone and dial up, and for the past 5 years phone and 4Meg unlimited broadband.
I recently decided to switch to BT and another broadband subscriber on cost reasons, but with days Virgin Media have offered me the same phone and unlimited broadband I was on, with free 24/7 phone calls, for about 66% of the cost I was on. Not only this, but the price and offer conditions are guarenteed for as long as I stay with them - result.

mbyrne01

I live out in the middle of nowhere, so I'm still on the old analogue service (no broadband from NTL either). We've been slowly losing channels without replacement and I already receive all 30 or so channels available to us so no hope of an upgrade to more channels. We've got The Hallmark channel to replace ALL Sky channels.

Oh - and BTW we pay more than digital subscribers for our 30 channels or so.

Now that really is a rip off :mad: . On the upside, I get to live in the splendid issolation of Canary Wharf.

Let the voting with wallets begin.

Michael.

KateJ_3

Having received Martin's mail this morning, I called Virgin and was nice and unconfrontational as he suggested. I asked for some extra channels for free to make up for the loss of Sky, but instead they said they could only offer me six months on my usual package, (Supreme), which I have a deal on anyway, paying £15.50, for the cost of the package one notch down, which is £11.50. I'm only saving four pounds a month, so £24 for six, but it's still better than a kick in the teeth.

It's difficult to know who to believe in terms of what's going to happen next, but the lady I spoke to did say that they're trying to resolve this Sky issue so that they could resume offering Sky basic channels as part of the Virgin Media service. We're pretty miffed not to be able to enjoy our Sunday night TV hoedown of Lost then 24, thoug Virgin Central does slightly make up for it. Let's hope they bring it back soon.

fionah

I'm not sure whether to actually take a chance and phone them. My current deal is £23.49 for:

2Mb broadband
Phone line with free local evening & weekend calls
The old NTL tv family pack (which looks to me like XL here http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/sorter/channels_full.html)

I'm worried that if they offer me a special deal for 6 months that they will change me over to the new method of pricing after the 6 months which would be a lot more expensive than what I have now.

Anybody else on a similar deal that already called them about Sky?

dibble77_2

I have just called them to complain..i have the 3 for £30 deal (phone, broadband and cable). They have upgraded my package to L for the remainder of my contract, and given me Sky Sports and Movies free for 1 month....nice...

csiman

These discounts people quote are nothing new. I have been paying £12.49 for the 4MB Broadband and free phone line rental for 3-4 years now. I just have to ring up every 6 months and threaten to leave and they reduce the BB from £24.99 to £12.49 and reduce the line rental from £11.50 to zero. Great deal but it does take hours of your life trying to get through to their customer disservice centre.

rjenk74

i heard from a mate at Virgin that sky massively put their price up and it would have cost Virgin around £4 per customer extra just for those channels. Plus anything that people are currently getting free (be it money off or extra services) they would have got before if they had asked !! Basically you should never be paying full price for your services, there is always room for a bit of manoeuvring!

Not sure what the truth of the argument is in the Branson and Murdoch shoving match but either way I would imagine companies like Dominoes Pizza etc will be mad as hell at the moment with sky as they have just lost all Virgins customer base to advertise to!

Am sure over the next few days/weeks it will get sorted and it will be back to normal again!!

Jenks

House_Elf_2

Thanks Martin!:money:

We have XL package and phoned up on Sunday to complain. We were offered free V+ box for 6 months. Declined this as we would prob have to pay to have it removed after 6 months!

Tried again today after reading the posts on here, and Hubby managed to negotiate £8.50 off phone for as long as we stay with VM. Much better result! :j

Thanks to All for your advice!:T

Joomoo

Just phoned Virgin and got our starter package downgraded to 'freeview' which costs nothing. Obviously not very savvy of me, but didn't even know they provided this service and it includes all the channels that we watch anyway (except of course Sky). Okay so it's only a fiver a month knocked off our bill, but still not to be sniffed at...! They said they would also upgrade me for free, but I was more interested in cutting the cost of our bill rather than having extra channels to watch, which we wouldn't watch anyway....

woohoo woohoo :j more money for holidays!!!