Our new Sky Haggling guide - please share your feedback

Peppa537

applicationcen said:

DonnySaver said:

I'm not begging them. I'm just suprised that's all. Have just purchased a PVR so I'm all set for life without Sky.

I’ve been eyeing up Humax and Freeview machines as an alternative to the Sky hardware.
Part of this thread should start to identify alternative suppliers & hardware to reinforce the ability to turn Sky offers down.
This forum is not here to support fat cats earning millions on Sky’s investor roster or give Sky a feeling of entitlement against its customers, it’s here to help you and I.

If you have Sky Q then the newer  Freesat recordable Arris box will connect to and work on the cables and LNB. If you have an aerial then any freeview box will be ok I think. If you have Sky+HD then a Humax freesat box will work, however you can only get these 2nd hand or reconditioned now.  I was going to go Freesat as I don’t have an aerial. In the end though I completely dropped Sports and Cinema and managed to get Signature, ultimate TV (Netflix), HD & UHD for £18 a month, so only £2 more than the Netflix top tier would cost me direct from them instead of through Sky. Sky are also offering some customers the chance to keep their Q box and use it for FTA channels, including recording, live pause etc, for £5 a month instead of the usual £15 (it’s called their Essentials TV package). This is discounted for 12 months but you’re not tied in. If Q box, dish etc was to go wrong they’d sort for you as well with this I presume, so if you can get it worth considering. If you are to go for the Arris box though it’s £220+ depending which model you go for, worth getting it from and paying for the 6yr warranty from Richer Sounds as it works out quite reasonable over the length of the warranty.

So many customers have used the cancel threat over the years to get a good deal that now Sky are assuming they’ll stay anyway, whatever they’re offered (and many still will). I was getting nowhere with Sports and Cinema included and was a few days away from ordering the Arris when Sky phoned, I explained that there was no point coming back with a better deal once I had the freesat box as I wouldn’t take it, he went away to check and called me back with the above deal (I’m not tied in either, it’s just discounted for 18 months). He did admit they are losing a lot of customers to cancellations because of rising costs elsewhere. 

Peppa537

Also @applicationcen if you have Sky+ HD then you can keep this box to watch Freesat channels through for free, but you can’t record, live pause etc without paying Sky something. Also the Arris box will work on the older Sky+ dish etc but you only get 2 recordings at a time instead of 4 (double check this first though if you decide on this option).  I apologise if I’m stating the obvious and you already know all from my last 2 posts. I spent ages researching what to do if I left Sky then ended up staying, for now anyway.

applicationcen

I got the following after a week or so without Sky.

A SkyQ 2TB box, UHD, Cinema (with Paramount Plus) for £29.
Then when the engineer turned up I also took Netflix Premier (UHD HDR Hi Def Sound) 4 profiles £5

He installed a hybrid LNB with 2 Sky Q appropriate feeds and three regular ones.

The 'negotiation' with the Sky win back guy was a bit irritating. 
He sent out a contacts prematurely before I agreed to the offer.
I was able to get through to a complaint line that they send via an SMS - and laid into the guy as I was mis sold a contract. They offered the 2TB box, which I was holding out for. So I agreed not to formalise the complaint.  

jj2579

Been putting off calling Sky to haggle for a few weeks now but thought I must bite the bullet as my offers had run out and I was on the full price of £106. 

For this grand total of £106 I was paying for Sky Signature, HD, UHD, Netflix, Cinema, Sports &  Multiroom.

I called in and went through automated process saying I wanted to cancel my sky completely. When I got through I spoke to a friendly lady and I told her I wanted to cancel as the price was too high and I couldn't justify the cost as I wasn't watching it as much and that the offer price (through the app) was not enough of a discount to keep it.  

She then offered me the full package that I had for £78. I said this was still too high and how can I bring it down? I asked about removing multiroom as I don't use it at all really. She said this would lower the price by £11. I then said it is too high and my max price is £60 for the package. She then went away to "speak to someone" and came back with a price of £61 for the same package without the multiroom. 

I accepted this as I was relieved to not have to cancel and then go through the waiting game and to have one less thing on my to do list. I might have got more of a discount by waiting it out but I find this process stressful so was happy with that outcome.

Next task, call BT as my current deal expires next month... 

Sterile

Didn't have much luck getting a new Sky Offer - Fibre contract almost up. Currently paying total £49/month for 'ultrafast plus' 500MB which includes the £5 signal boost. Out of comtract price in Jan would be £55 with an online offer to recontract for £50. Called up and got it down to £48 (lol) - was very polite but pointed out that Vodafone and Plusnet have similar packages for £35-40, but they wouldn't budge, even though I take a load of their TV stuff as well. 

I've organised a switch....

brewerdave

Did the dance this afternoon with Sky on chat. Went to put in notice to cancel as current deal finishes in January. Very surprised to get offered a deal without much fuss at all at the same price as currently but with a Q box and free install !!
(My HD box is on its last legs).
Sky Signature £19
Sky Sports £13
Sports HD £2
Sky HD £4

Wanted £30 admin fee but I haggled that down to £10, which seemed fair for a free Q box and install.

Must be some Sky Xmas spirit!!

superbigal

Mine is going from £85.50 to £110
The £110 has some discounts applied even though out of contract.
Must be a new thing.
This is for virtually all TV services, multiroom, Broadband superfast with calls.
Phonecall with Scot's lad working from home.  He quoted £100.50.
Cancelled and he organised within 2 minutes.
He did not seem to have any fight in him.
Quite bizarre.
See what comes in next 30 days.

aylesby

If you are thinking of moving away from sky broadband and keep sky Q you will have coverage problems with your new modem.
This is because sky Q and sky modem are a mesh system. There are work arounds and the forums are helpful but it takes time to understand the problem. I dumped sky broadband after a price hike without knowing the size of the problem.
I now run sky Q multiroom, eero mesh, Plusnet broadband and lots of handhelds. It freezes occasionally and usually corrects itself. The coverage is huge and the speed through the house is as delivered.   

Conspiracyuk

As there have been no new posts on this thread for 8 months then I guess everyones happy with Sky?!?

Not me I'm afraid, I have TV, Phone and broadband with Sky but with all the bills going up and being out of contract i thought I would try and haggle the cost down. 

Got nothing via online chat, so called. After a 40min wait I got through but after explaining I could get a similar package with in fact with speeds 8x faster than sky for £65.99 compared to the £87.00 I was spending with them they wouldn't match it or get close.

They did reduce it to £73 a month but when I pushed and said no i wanted it to match the competitors price they said they would just cancel my contract instead. I pointed out that even themselves where cheaper if I went for Sky stream but still wouldn't budge.

It would appear a multi billion pound company are happy to lose a customer over £7 a month.

Very dissapointing and shows they don't really care for the VIP gold status customers.

Think they are so used to people threatening to cancel but not actually that they don't offer much nowadays.

So I have cancelled, shame as I like the product but looks like they don't like there customers much anymore.

Be interested to see if people have had any other luck?

I had Sky Signature with Ultra HD, Netflix premium, superfast well 62meg broadband and home phone with anytime calls.

Detail_Merchant

Conspiracyuk said:

As there have been no new posts on this thread for 8 months then I guess everyones happy with Sky?!?

I think most people have been commenting on this thread instead - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5480644/sky-tv-retention-deals-post-your-haggling-successes#latest