Virgin Media retention deals (post your haggling successes)

TheMusicologist

TheMusicologist said:

Haggling success: 27th January 2021
Like many other customers, I received the letter about the price rise. I managed to get through to a UK call centre, via India(?), in around 45 minutes. I phoned the usual number, spoke to a helpful lady in the offshore call centre, who then transferred me to UK retentions where I spoke to a helpful Welsh lady.
My old deal was £56 a month (to rise to £60) for 200MB internet, Maxit TV (with BT Sport but no kids/cinema/Sky Sports), and evening phone calls. 
I made the point on the phone, as so many do, that £79 - just £19 more a month than my current deal at the time - would get a new customer the Ultimate Oomph package, with 500MB internet, all TV, two new boxes, new router, and free unlimited SIM card, and that I felt this price rise no longer offered me value for money.
After a nice chat, she explained that she could do the Ultimate Oomph for £99 if I wanted. I said I better look elsewhere, at which point she miraculously saw her manager walking past (it's so transparent...), and came back to me with £89 a month for the Ultimate Oomph. She then said that "due to my loyal custom" (ha!) she could find an extra £5 for me, taking it to £84.
I agreed.
Not sure if you can count a price rise from £56 to £84 as a haggling success(!), but for the package I'm getting, I'm pretty delighted with that. I would have been paying £60 for far, far less of a service, and as a bonus, my area is being upgraded to 600MB next week, and that gets thrown in automatically on the Oomph package. 

I should also have mentioned that this was worth it for another reason, in that my current mobile contract (£40 a month) expires in a few months, so the Virgin Mobile SIM will replace that, so I'll have gone from paying £100+ for my Virgin/EE services, to £84 for the lot, with a much improved service from Virgin. Worked well for my circumstances.

DJ_Malfranco

TheMusicologist said:

TheMusicologist said:

Haggling success: 27th January 2021
Like many other customers, I received the letter about the price rise. I managed to get through to a UK call centre, via India(?), in around 45 minutes. I phoned the usual number, spoke to a helpful lady in the offshore call centre, who then transferred me to UK retentions where I spoke to a helpful Welsh lady.
My old deal was £56 a month (to rise to £60) for 200MB internet, Maxit TV (with BT Sport but no kids/cinema/Sky Sports), and evening phone calls. 
I made the point on the phone, as so many do, that £79 - just £19 more a month than my current deal at the time - would get a new customer the Ultimate Oomph package, with 500MB internet, all TV, two new boxes, new router, and free unlimited SIM card, and that I felt this price rise no longer offered me value for money.
After a nice chat, she explained that she could do the Ultimate Oomph for £99 if I wanted. I said I better look elsewhere, at which point she miraculously saw her manager walking past (it's so transparent...), and came back to me with £89 a month for the Ultimate Oomph. She then said that "due to my loyal custom" (ha!) she could find an extra £5 for me, taking it to £84.
I agreed.
Not sure if you can count a price rise from £56 to £84 as a haggling success(!), but for the package I'm getting, I'm pretty delighted with that. I would have been paying £60 for far, far less of a service, and as a bonus, my area is being upgraded to 600MB next week, and that gets thrown in automatically on the Oomph package. 

I should also have mentioned that this was worth it for another reason, in that my current mobile contract (£40 a month) expires in a few months, so the Virgin Mobile SIM will replace that, so I'll have gone from paying £100+ for my Virgin/EE services, to £84 for the lot, with a much improved service from Virgin. Worked well for my circumstances.

You've secured yourself a rather decent deal there, considering the timeline with your mobile side of things. This is exactly the kind of ploy/tactic I used to operate with VM when my contract was expired, or when they increased the prices during a current contract period when I was in gainfull employment. But now, seeing as I've taken early retirement, I inform them that I can no longer afford the price increases and they always conclude a better deal for me. This on off game with VM has been going on for donkeys years, but I'm always happy to play along with them to reduce my costs. One of the best tactics I've found to trigger a rapid response from the outbound team is, stick your 30days cancellation in, then if you happen to have the home phone number with VM, sign up with another provider and get them to port your home number to their network, that really makes VM sit up and take notice when a competitor requests a landline number to be transferred across....

DJ_Malfranco

Here's my recent deal that actually saved me two quid...with no 1st March price increase...happy days

PZ19

TheMusicologist said:

Haggling success: 27th January 2021
Like many other customers, I received the letter about the price rise. I managed to get through to a UK call centre, via India(?), in around 45 minutes. I phoned the usual number, spoke to a helpful lady in the offshore call centre, who then transferred me to UK retentions where I spoke to a helpful Welsh lady.
My old deal was £56 a month (to rise to £60) for 200MB internet, Maxit TV (with BT Sport but no kids/cinema/Sky Sports), and evening phone calls. 
I made the point on the phone, as so many do, that £79 - just £19 more a month than my current deal at the time - would get a new customer the Ultimate Oomph package, with 500MB internet, all TV, two new boxes, new router, and free unlimited SIM card, and that I felt this price rise no longer offered me value for money.
After a nice chat, she explained that she could do the Ultimate Oomph for £99 if I wanted. I said I better look elsewhere, at which point she miraculously saw her manager walking past (it's so transparent...), and came back to me with £89 a month for the Ultimate Oomph. She then said that "due to my loyal custom" (ha!) she could find an extra £5 for me, taking it to £84.
I agreed.
Not sure if you can count a price rise from £56 to £84 as a haggling success(!), but for the package I'm getting, I'm pretty delighted with that. I would have been paying £60 for far, far less of a service, and as a bonus, my area is being upgraded to 600MB next week, and that gets thrown in automatically on the Oomph package. 

Haha I got offered that for £79 a few weeks back so you done well for the package you got.. I know it’s more but you got lot more, now you can sit and watch day after day off football and movies!

PZ19

Just_Passing_Bi said:

PZ19 said:

Just_Passing_Bi said:

ozzyuk said:

Therefore I took the advice on here and called 0345 454 1098.

Unable to get through on 150/151, I called the number above, I was on hold for 80 mins

Just received my bill, charged £11.93,for the call

Yes I noticed on my latest bill I got charged for that call.. mind you if you eventually end up saving more than £11.93 over your contract then you are net up, so swings and roundabouts..  you could always ring 150 and com

The reason I was on hold for 80mins was to cancel my package, something you can't do online

Although I cancelled my package (apart from BB) I never received a call back

You needed to cancel everything to get a call back, all you have done There is reduce your services, so they wouldn’t call back as you’ve not cancelled.

JasperAlex

Has Virgin retentions stopped offering 12months contracts with an 18 month discount? Seems like mostly I'm seeing 18 month contracts with no extended discount period. Would prefer to have an extra 6 months to negotiate and not have the price abruptly increase if I don't cancel in time. Seems like the extra £50 credit for signing a new contract has magically disappeared from a couple of years ago too.

chaotic_j

Hi, for the M200 broadband and landline phone package (do not use landline phone) we've been paying £55.50 a month as our deal ran out and every time I called Virgin I couldn't get through. They are going to increase by £3.50 a month so the package would end up being £59 a month.

Finally got to speak to someone by selecting the option on the phone that I was thinking of cancelling and they offered to keep the package the same for £36/month - I said I can get BT fibre for about £25/month and advised of their own offers for new customers. They said their own offer was the best price they had seen.

Asked about downgrading to M100 - advised £30/month. So I have given 30 days notice to cancel.. is it likely they will call me with a better offer? If they had offered M350 for £36/month I would have taken it. They said we use far more than the average household and would see buffering etc. issues on M100 - I really don't think so? Opinions on these prices? many thanks.

PZ19

chaotic_j said:

Hi, for the M200 broadband and landline phone package (do not use landline phone) we've been paying £55.50 a month as our deal ran out and every time I called Virgin I couldn't get through. They are going to increase by £3.50 a month so the package would end up being £59 a month.

Finally got to speak to someone by selecting the option on the phone that I was thinking of cancelling and they offered to keep the package the same for £36/month - I said I can get BT fibre for about £25/month and advised of their own offers for new customers. They said their own offer was the best price they had seen.

Asked about downgrading to M100 - advised £30/month. So I have given 30 days notice to cancel.. is it likely they will call me with a better offer? If they had offered M350 for £36/month I would have taken it. They said we use far more than the average household and would see buffering etc. issues on M100 - I really don't think so? Opinions on these prices? many thanks.

Put your cancellation in.  Look back through this thread for what people been recently offered.  Your price should start with a 2.  Once cancellation is in, you have 30 days to change your mind.  They should ring you in next few days after cancellation offering you a deal.  Be aware they don’t have to however.  Like I said you can always change your mind.  It’s worth getting a price that you can get elsewhere using a cashback site to quote to them. Load of rubbish about issues with 100mb

Cropstar

Bettie said:

£29 for broadband 100mbs.. Weekend calls and tv minimum package but as a sweetener they chucked in a choice of tv extras.. Sport or drama or kids  etc.. I appreciate it will go up in March but Im happy with what Ive got. 

Thanks for highlighting. Just got the same deal here. Had to threaten to leave, signed up with Sky and then got a phone call a few days later.

PZ19

Cropstar said:

Bettie said:

£29 for broadband 100mbs.. Weekend calls and tv minimum package but as a sweetener they chucked in a choice of tv extras.. Sport or drama or kids  etc.. I appreciate it will go up in March but Im happy with what Ive got. 

Thanks for highlighting. Just got the same deal here. Had to threaten to leave, signed up with Sky and then got a phone call a few days later.

It shouldn’t go up in March. The price you agreed with retentions is the fixed price. As a matter of interest what Sport did they offer? BT Sport?