Virgin Media Cancelled.....but have we done the right thing?

anna10

We've been a bit neglectful over past few years and the price for our internet, phone & TV has been creeping up & up so it's now £54.99 per month. For that we have BB up to 20Mb speed, XL TV & free w/end calls.

Best Virgin could offer us is BB up to 30Mb, M TV (freeview) plus Tivo Box & same phone deal for £33.99 p/m, or BB only (no TV or phone line) for £28.99 p/m :eek:.

We mainly use BB for surfing the net, FaceTime & occasionally to download programmes from BBC i Player so don't really need a faster speed. OH will miss BT Sport but has said he can live without it and daughter will miss Disney Channels but that'll be good for her and as we already have a digital aerial we can watch freeview for nothing.

We didn't feel Virgins offers were good enough so we've booked our cancellation date for beginning of March.

We can get Plusnet unlimited BB, est speed 15Mb, free w/end calls for £18.15 p/m. (Need to pay installation charge of £49.99 + £5.99 for router) Not had a BT line for 13 years but think the installation charge covers putting in the new line.

OH & I think it's a no brainer and we'd be mad not to go for Plusnet's offer, but I'm just a bit worried that we're missing something obvious and will regret leaving Virgin. The only real down side I can think off is that we'll need to change our e-mail addresses. Is there anything else we've forgotten? Just remembered we have Virgin mobile sim only contracts, will they realise & up the price for them?

Thanks.

victor2

With Virgin cable you do actually get very close to, if not spot on, the "up to" speed quoted. With ADSL over a phone line you rarely approach the claimed maximum speed.
But VM phone does work out relatively expensive, and TV is a lifestyle choice - freeview and a PVR is totally adequate for us.
Surprised VM retentions didn't offer you anything better, as threatening to leave usually makes them come up with something. We've ended up with 20MB (going up to 30 this year they say) plus phone with "anytime" calls for £12.15 a month, which is £24.15 less a £12 discount good for 2 years. I've paid 12 month line rental up front for £120 (which I believe has gone up a bit now), so that is effectively £10 extra a month.
You will lose your VM based email address, but put a forwarder on it to your new one before the VM contract is terminated and you'll probably find it keeps forwarding for a long time - some people have said it's still going years after leaving.
For your new address, get something like a gmail one which is not tied in to a particular broadband provider.

kwikbreaks

If moving ISP don't forget to use a cashback site - Quidco or Topcashback. Upto just shy of £40 on TCB right now depending on what you take.

anna10

Thanks for the replys.

We're hoping Virgin's retention team will call us back with another offer, we'd accept the same one you're on Victor (or slightly dearer due to rise this month) as we'd prefer to stay with Virgin. We'll leave it a couple of weeks and if they've not called back, I'll give them another try. If no luck with a good price, we'll move to Plusnet.

Also, good idea re future e-mail addresses, to go with gmail or the like so we don't have the hassle of changing them again in the future if we change broadband providers.

Will also look at Quidco etc to see if we can go through them for same deal.

Thanks.

bubblegun

On the plus side Virgin let you (or they used to..) join on a new customer offer if you stay away for 3 months.