Our new Broadband Haggling guide - please share your feedback

css

Mutton_Geoff said:

Virgin Media M250 - 18 months on £23.95 planned hike to £64.00 next month. Online chat reduced to £62.00. Cancelled service and twice daily calls started coming in. Still with 3 weeks to go to cut off, they called again. "How much to get you to stay?". "Less than I pay now". No fuss, immediately reduced to £22 for 18 months with RPI+ increase in April 2025. Told them I'd had loads of issues contacting customer service so they also credited my bill with £45, so altogether, M250, no other options, equivalent rate £19.50 over the next 18 months. 

Niceee, but will it go higher from April?
Whatever price you get now doesn't it stay as that regardless of rpi increase??

Mutton_Geoff

css said:

Mutton_Geoff said:

Virgin Media M250 - 18 months on £23.95 planned hike to £64.00 next month. Online chat reduced to £62.00. Cancelled service and twice daily calls started coming in. Still with 3 weeks to go to cut off, they called again. "How much to get you to stay?". "Less than I pay now". No fuss, immediately reduced to £22 for 18 months with RPI+ increase in April 2025. Told them I'd had loads of issues contacting customer service so they also credited my bill with £45, so altogether, M250, no other options, equivalent rate £19.50 over the next 18 months. 

Niceee, but will it go higher from April?
Whatever price you get now doesn't it stay as that regardless of rpi increase??

First RPI++ increment not until April 2025. I can live with that.

grassmarket

BT Broadband/Landline HALVED after initiating a switch to Sky. I had to go as far as agreeing to switch, before my existing supplier BT phoned me & finally offered a decent deal. That deal was HALF what I had been paying them, & £11/m LESS than the first deal they offered when I started the haggle. In the end they offered £24.99 for part fibre broadband & PAYG landline. Their opening offer in the haggle was £35.99, a week later they offered £32.99, then £32 - then the day after I initiated the switch, they finally offered £24.99. So, as the MSE haggling advice says: don’t blink first! Keep asking & re-asking every few days, don’t accept the 1st, 2nd or even 3rd offer - and above all keep a note of the names of everyone that you speak to. 

where_are_we

I have Virgin BB M125 and Talk more anytime package and my 18 month contract is up for renewal later this month. I haggle a bit every time a renewal comes up and get a promotional discount. Am I correct that my @blueyonder.co.uk email address service will be lost if I move away from Virgin? This has stopped me in the past from really wanting to leave Virgin.

My promotional discount of £17 ends with the ending of my present contract. They are offering the same £17 off for another 18 months via online "manage my package" - "your renewal offers" - "renew now" - "grab your deal" - "place order". However the "contract summary sheet" doesn`t mention any promotional discount, just the reduced monthly cost. How long have Virgin been offering a better deal this way? I am reasonably happy to accept it.

I know I could haggle for a better deal but I don`t really want to leave because of the potential email address problem.

flaneurs_lobster

where_are_we said:

I know I could haggle for a better deal but I don`t really want to leave because of the potential email address problem.

Yes, your blueyonder email account will cease if you leave Virgin.

I hope you realise that VM stopped giving an email service to new customers three years ago and there is nothing to say that they couldn't give notice that they will stop supporting existing addresses too.

You should really try to move to a dedicated (free) email service like Gmail or Yahoo or Outlook, if for no other reason that it would remove one of the constraints on your consideration of other broadband suppliers. Do it gradually over several months, there's no need for any big bang approach and it's not difficult to run two accounts while you migrate.

where_are_we

VM renewal of 18 month contract for BB m125 and talkmoreanytime landline. I tried to get a better price by haggling on chat and bizarrely the best offer they could do was about £6 more than the online renewal offer I had got (see my last post). I know I could get a better offer by threatening to leave but to be honest I do not enjoy lying when I know I will not leave. So I have accepted the £17 discount for a new 18 month contract that they offered via "renewal offers"

Peppa537

I've been with BT for a number of years and the Fibre 2 and WiFi has always been reliable. My contract is due for renewal in July, BT keep writing to me with an online address to see my renewal offers. These aren't any good, just at what I'm paying now (£29,no landline) and it's obviously a 2 year contract. I tried a live chat and all they're interested in is downgrading me to Fibre 1, Fibre 2 is still the same price as showing on my online account. This is probably because on Fibre 2 BT will upgrade you to their 100 Full Fibre package when it's available at your property. Unfortunately for them we can get full fibre now via City Fibre so will be switching to one of their ISPs. No doubt once I've initiated the switch BT will then offer decent deals but it will be too late as far as I'm concerned. I've always managed to get decent renewal prices from BT in the past, I did wonder if it's because they're moving their domestic BB to EE, but their offers are even worse.