MSE News: How to beat Sky price hikes

brewerdave

My s-i-l has just cancelled his TV package, Family plus Sport and Movies; about 4 days before it took effect he got an email offering 50% off -he called and got the discount up to 60% plus £100 bill credit -the only thing that they wouldn't negotiate on was HD so he has gone without for the moment.

david100

Earlier this year I took advantage of this site's blagged deal with BT which gave me unlimited fibre broadband for £10 a month, TV for £2.50 a month (which gave me a 'free' YouView recording box) and phone line for £16.99 a month, but with two months free if I paid for a whole year upfront (which I did). So I've been paying £12.50 a month, and the deal ends in March, at which point it should go up to £23 a month for the BB and, if I keep the TV, £5 a month for that. According to their website, I had three choices: cancel BT Sport; pay £5 a month to keep it; or renew my contract for 18 months. I'd quite like to have the sport, although it's not essential, so I called BT to ask about all this and said I was worried that if I renewed I'd lose my current deal, which would be pointless. They first said I would, then came back and said that if I renewed now I'd keep my current deal until March and then go up to the full price for the remainder of the new 18 month contract. I wasn't comfortable with this as I had every intention of haggling with them come March to keep the costs down (or switch back to Sky, depending on the deals), so I said I didn't want to do that and would like to cancel BT Sport for now.


They then put me through to cancellations, who came back and offered to renew my current contract for 18 months on the exact same deal as I'm on now, so as a result of all this, I now have 18 months of this very cheap deal to go instead of seven, and get the whole BT Sport package for free. So this whole sport price hike has actually ended up saving me money and giving me more sport for free! Thought this might help anyone in a similar situation.

rollercoasta

Phoned Sky yesterday and told them I'd been reviewing my bill and needed to save money so might need to cancel my package.

After a few simple questions about what I watch they offered £6 off my Family tv package, £4 off line rental and £10 off broadband. So £20 off each month for 10 months.

£200 saved from literally a 10 minute phone call, no haggling or lying required.

griffga

I'm not happy with Sky price increase or that they've got far less football matches for higher cost, rang last week and said I wanted to cancel BB, phone and TV package (variety and sports HD) currently paying £84 a month
advisor told me I could only cancel TV as when I activated skysports5 I had free BB for 24 months but had agreed a new contract, 12 months to run

I said I would cancel TV then, no offers no chat she just went straight into what day my contract would end etc. At this point I got cut off, decided to try again after a week but checking my sky online today the cancellation has gone through!

Spoke to someone on live chat who told me nothing he could do and if I did continue with cancellation I would have to start paying for the BB again as it was tied to having Skysports5

is it worth ringing again? people have mentioned having offers in messages, is that by email or on sky account page?

dancingdaisy

Just sharing.

Line rental, phone, Internet and TV was £71.00 a month.

Now reduced to £24 a month with a new HD box winging its way to me. A saving of £564 a year!

Pleased is an understatement, it's well worth ringing them. :beer:

I should add I have got rid of a few things that I didn't watch as well, but still a real result.

ArtySparkly

Really unimpressed with Sky at the moment. My bill has just increased massively (price hike and end of promo) and there are no new channels/sports games to justify it.

After being a customer for so many years, I thought they might be sympathetic and offer me a decent discount. The man I spoke to this afternoon was very firm with his "best offer" which was only a tiny discount of £10 off my £65 bill. I told him I never used to pay that much and he said the previous offers such as half price Sky Sports and Sky Movies aren't available to customers any more! So I went away with cancelling my add ons as I planned.

I do wonder whether I might just cancel Sky altogether as the price is extortionate compared to what I paid when I signed up!

jem16

ArtySparkly wrote: »

he said the previous offers such as half price Sky Sports and Sky Movies aren't available to customers any more!

Which is totally untrue.

I do wonder whether I might just cancel Sky altogether as the price is extortionate compared to what I paid when I signed up!

Cancel the whole lot and wait for the offers to come in. Some have received 50% off for 12 months on My Sky immediately after cancelling.

Lady_Bee

jem16 wrote: »

Cancel the whole lot and wait for the offers to come in. Some have received 50% off for 12 months on My Sky immediately after cancelling.

Yep, this happened for me. Got offered a few things via live chat but went through with the cancellation as they weren't offering 50% on the chat but the offer was there immediately in my account. That was a couple of weeks ago and yesterday I received a 'stay with Sky' letter which was offering the 50% off but also £50 credit if I renew online. I was already planning to take up the 50% off offer but this was an added bonus, I'll be sorting this at the weekend.

By the way this is only on the tv, I don't have phone and broadband with them so there are special offers all round. This will now be my second year at 50% off although last year I had to wait for it to go off before I got the 50% offer.

Play hardball people

brewerdave

Lady_Bee wrote: »

Play hardball people

Got to agree...for years Sky have had no meaningful competition other than in Virgin areas ,but now with BT and the other ISPs offering TV packs PLUS Android TV boxes being sold by the 1000s , they really are going to have to sharpen up their act to keep their income streams healthy :T

mouse10

Cancelled and got offered 60% off any package and £50 credit. Didn't accept, a couple of weeks later looked at My sky and there was an offer of 60% and £100 credit on a month to month contract. Got Original and Sports for £18.80 a month. I will keep for 6 months to use up my credit and then cancel again.