Haggle with Virgin - our new guide

victor2

jem16 wrote: »

So I assume the £15.50 is in addition to the £164 making an equivalent monthly total of £29.50 per month?

Do they allow you to keep a 12 months contract so that LRS falls in line with it?

This year I paid £144 LRS, so it's effectively £27.50 per month. From January the new rate takes effect, so £29.17 per month from then on. They are increasing their package cost in February, so another £3.49 will be added on.

The last negotiation resulted in a new 12 month contract from May, but with a discount that is valid until next November. Will have to negotiate another deal either in May or November, if the latter (and another 12 month contract) it will bring it almost into line with the LRS, which runs for the calendar year. During the last May haggle, they said they could see I'd got the LRS in place (which is of course non-refundable), but it didn't seem to stop their acceptance that they'd have to give me a discount to stay.

jem16

victor2 wrote: »

They are increasing their package cost in February, so another £3.49 will be added on.

Have you been sent your price increase letter yet? Part of that £3.49 will include the £1 extra for LR which won't apply to you.

Difficult to tell as yet what the price increase will be for BB and phone. It looks like the price for BB is increasing from £17.50 to £19 from their website so £1.50 plus the LR increase of £1 would make it £2.50.

victor2

jem16 wrote: »

Have you been sent your price increase letter yet? Part of that £3.49 will include the £1 extra for LR which won't apply to you.

Difficult to tell as yet what the price increase will be for BB and phone. It looks like the price for BB is increasing from £17.50 to £19 from their website so £1.50 plus the LR increase of £1 would make it £2.50.

Yes, had the letter which said:

From February next year, your bill will be going up by £3.49 a month

As I suspected you were right regarding the LR portion, and as I've already paid for next year's LR, I phoned them up. They confirmed my bill will only go up by £2.49 a month and offered me £3 a month credit for the next 6 months for my trouble.
Sometimes it is worth contacting them.

visidigi

I haven't paid line rental for the last two years.

Its the one big difference between negotiating without going through to the retention outbound team.

Cancel and wait for the call - they will give you a years line rental free of charge without much pushing...

Mr_Poves

Just for reference - I'm paying £74 pm for bbxl , tv xl plus a 2nd box , and talk weekends , Gave vm my intention of terminating services and the lady I spoke to offered me 9 mth's @ £62.99 with sky movies free , that's the best she could do .
So waiting to see what they offer in the next few weeks.

darkcloudi

Didn't get the best of deals from VirginMedia, for the following:

Phone XL
SuperFibre50
TV M
Caller Display
Talk 08 2 - Free calls to 0845/0870

£26 first 6 months then £29 (Getting a renewed £5 discount for 18 months which is why I am getting it this price else it would have been £31 for 6 months then £34, contract signed for 12 months)

Line Rental £164 paid in advance.

stephenliverpool1

Mmmm...Why does anyone stay with VM if you watch sports (football, golf, etc.) and films ?

I don't know how much VM charges for TV channels; in particular for Sports and movies.

I used to be with VM a few years for everything (b/band, TV and phone).

I then joined Sky and got a fantastic deal. I did not advise anyone here because it could not be replicated. It was really a silly mistake by Sky but I benefited.

Anyway I have got 50% off TV with Sky and have done so for a few years now. I now pay £23-50 for all Sky Sports channel and Sky entertainment package.

My b/band and phone is with Plusnet. I pay approximately £19-50 a month for unlimited b/band and any time phone calls. This price includes line rental and I get download speeds of 1.6. I can get the BT sports channels for approximately £11-00 per month on my Sky dish if I want but I don't bother yet. I may do when the Champions League gets more interesting.

VM and BT just cannot compete with what Sky can offer with regards prices for Sport and movies.

mrjwood79

I was still on 10MB broadband, with XL TV and M phone, with the February increase the bill was going to exceed £75. We decided we don't watch enough channels so we dropped our TV down and got 50MB broadband with the same phone package and a new SuperHub for free for £34.99 a month with a discounted 6 month offer of £31.99 roughly halving our bill. Glad I found these haggling tips.

victor2

If you've got the latest Superhub 2, it's WiFi capabilities are far better than the original Superhub, with both 5Ghz and 2.4GHz channels, plus 802.11ac.
Also, if you're on their "Superfibre 50", you can ask them for the free upgrade to Superfibre 70. Chances are the 70Mbps download speed won't make a huge difference to you, but my upload speed went up from 3 to 5Mbps with the upgrade, which I have found useful. They don't seem to be automatically upgrading everyone like they have in the past, only those that ask or respond to the offer through the on-line account.

ClaraPetal

I used this guide back in December as I wanted to ditch Virgin TV and save money but still hang on to fibre BB since I cannot get BT fibre, and normal BB speeds are really poor in my area. I cancelled via phone giving 30 days notice on my contract, which was due to the end in days anyway.

I ignored the pleading sales pitch from the girl I was ending my contract with. A few days later I got a call from them and eventually was offered 50MB Fibre, plus weekend calls on my L/L for £18 a month inclusive of L/R! I accepted. I was initially not bothered about keeping the L/L but since it was technically free I went ahead.

I purchased a cheap NOW TV box for £14.99 from Amazon that came with a 6 month entertainment pass (Daily offer deals reduced from £39!) which I wanted for Catch UP TV and I am now saving almost £35 per month!

Win, Win!