Virgin Media retention deals (post your haggling successes)

PZ19

whattochoose said:

I have been able to negotiate a new deal this morning with VM. This comprises....
M250 Broadband
Virgin TV, V6 box, 
Sky Sports Collection
Maxit TV
Telephone line rental, weekend calls.

The cost per month is £56.25. However, I only need to keep Sky Sports a month, and can then cancel, the overall cost coming down to £49.
Also I will not face an increase when charges are increased in April or May. It appears this is because I've agreed a new contract after November, 2022.
I'm satisfied and happy with this, although it probably doesn't compare with some of the deals I've seen negotiated on here.

I have that with Sports HD for £57.25 so I think that’s reasonable price

ManiaMuse1

So my contract for M125 broadband (originally M100) was about to expire in the middle of February. Last time I couldn't be bothered with cancellation dance so accepted a level 2 retention deal (18 months at £38 p/m for 12 months then £43 p/m for the last 6 months). Price was due to go up to £51 p/m and then I think it would have also been caught out by the 13.8% inflation increases in April so that would have brought it up to about £58 p/m.

I called Virgin on Saturday morning and said that I wanted to cancel. The first person I spoke to (UK based) made a fairly underwhelming offer of keeping it at £43 p/m but I think the April price rise would have still been applicable.. The second person I spoke to sounded like he was from India and tbh was really hard to understand. He was speaking really fast and reading from all sorts of scripts and skipping over the figures really quickly. Think he offered me two different deals but the best was only like £5 less for a higher speed package.

I was polite on the phone and insisted that I wanted to put my 30 days notice in. Just said it was purely about price, that I was not bothered about speed and that I was going to take advantage on another provider's introductory offer for 18 months for £25 p/m even though the speed would only be 59mbps.

Got a call back from an 020 number this morning which was a lady from Virgin. She asked about the recent changes to my contract and got straight to it asking why I was leaving. I just repeated the above and said that I was going to another provider for 18 months at 59mbps for £25 p/m. She then came straight out with an offer of £23 p/m for M125 broadband. I said I was happy with that as it was cheaper than what Sky were offering for a faster speed.

Fairly pleased with that as it is only 50p p/m more than the cheapest deal I could for 59 mbps and £3 p/m cheaper than Virgin Media's current new customer offer for M125 broadband. It sounded like the lady who called me probably could have offered an even better deal if I had pushed her but she was nice and I did not want to push my luck. The new contract does say that they can make changes to the charges during the contract so assume if I will still get stung by the 13.8% price increase after a couple of months? That would still only bring it up to £26 p/m which is the current new customer offer.

Over a year it works out as a saving of £380 once the price increase for the old and new deal is factored in (or £420 if it turns out they do not increase the charges for my new deal). Either way it is a noticeable saving. Just annoying that you have to go through this whole song and dance every 18 months.

fossman

ManiaMuse1 said:

So my contract for M125 broadband (originally M100) was about to expire in the middle of February. Last time I couldn't be bothered with cancellation dance so accepted a level 2 retention deal (18 months at £38 p/m for 12 months then £43 p/m for the last 6 months). Price was due to go up to £51 p/m and then I think it would have also been caught out by the 13.8% inflation increases in April so that would have brought it up to about £58 p/m.

I called Virgin on Saturday morning and said that I wanted to cancel. The first person I spoke to (UK based) made a fairly underwhelming offer of keeping it at £43 p/m but I think the April price rise would have still been applicable.. The second person I spoke to sounded like he was from India and tbh was really hard to understand. He was speaking really fast and reading from all sorts of scripts and skipping over the figures really quickly. Think he offered me two different deals but the best was only like £5 less for a higher speed package.

I was polite on the phone and insisted that I wanted to put my 30 days notice in. Just said it was purely about price, that I was not bothered about speed and that I was going to take advantage on another provider's introductory offer for 18 months for £25 p/m even though the speed would only be 59mbps.

Got a call back from an 020 number this morning which was a lady from Virgin. She asked about the recent changes to my contract and got straight to it asking why I was leaving. I just repeated the above and said that I was going to another provider for 18 months at 59mbps for £25 p/m. She then came straight out with an offer of £23 p/m for M125 broadband. I said I was happy with that as it was cheaper than what Sky were offering for a faster speed.

Fairly pleased with that as it is only 50p p/m more than the cheapest deal I could for 59 mbps and £3 p/m cheaper than Virgin Media's current new customer offer for M125 broadband. It sounded like the lady who called me probably could have offered an even better deal if I had pushed her but she was nice and I did not want to push my luck. The new contract does say that they can make changes to the charges during the contract so assume if I will still get stung by the 13.8% price increase after a couple of months? That would still only bring it up to £26 p/m which is the current new customer offer.

Over a year it works out as a saving of £380 once the price increase for the old and new deal is factored in (or £420 if it turns out they do not increase the charges for my new deal). Either way it is a noticeable saving. Just annoying that you have to go through this whole song and dance every 18 months.

I am sure my price increase letter last year said that Virgin apply the price increase to the pre-discount price.

The standard price for M125 broadband appears to be £44 so your contract must include a £21 per month discount to bring your price down to £23.

The new price would be £44+13.8%=£50.07 less the £21 discount = £29.07 per month.

That is a 26.4% increase.

patricia1066

I was told by retention that the Volt package would be increased in line with inflation for the o2 contract, but not for the virginmedia contract in March 23.

The increase does take the full package price, for me is £51 and applies 13.4%. The discount is then deducted. I would pay an extra £7 on top of £17 agreed.

My contract was made on 19/11/22 and dated two days later. 

If there is any dispute, the conversation transcript can be requested.

ShelboBaggins

ShelboBaggins said:

uF0n said:

ShelboBaggins said:

The conversation was a bit sketchy so I wasnt convinced she actually put the cancellation through and I didn't get an email so I contacted them via WhatApp yesterday afternoon. Did the same song and dance with trying to offer new deal (all worse than previous offers!) when all I asked was to confirm if cancellation was processed. 3hrs later turns out there was no cancellation so I asked them to do it now. Got text and email confirming within half hour so fingers crossed will get outbound calling me.

It took me three separate calls (first Whatsapp, then phone, then Whatsapp) before my cancellation was actually put through... the first 2 said they had, but obviously had not!

Cancellation went through last Friday... not heard back from retentions yet...

Got my call yesterday evening but didn't offer me much better than the normal retentions team and felt like they couldn't be bothered to negotiate. Am hoping for another callback and someone who's keen to negotiate otherwise I'm geared up to sign up in my partner's name. Can't believe I live in Birmingham and my nearest exchange is only one of few that doesn't offer yet offer superfast fibre so Virgin are pretty much my only choice.

Happy to report that after declining outbound's initial offer 2 weeks ago, have now accepted offer of £19 for V350 (M250 boosted to M350) plus £6 O2 6GB (boosted to 12GB) SIM only. That's £25 in total saving £79 per month on existing VM contract and current Vodafone SIM including VM £9 increase in April. I'm glad I held out a bit longer.

ManiaMuse1

fossman said:

ManiaMuse1 said:

So my contract for M125 broadband (originally M100) was about to expire in the middle of February. Last time I couldn't be bothered with cancellation dance so accepted a level 2 retention deal (18 months at £38 p/m for 12 months then £43 p/m for the last 6 months). Price was due to go up to £51 p/m and then I think it would have also been caught out by the 13.8% inflation increases in April so that would have brought it up to about £58 p/m.

I called Virgin on Saturday morning and said that I wanted to cancel. The first person I spoke to (UK based) made a fairly underwhelming offer of keeping it at £43 p/m but I think the April price rise would have still been applicable.. The second person I spoke to sounded like he was from India and tbh was really hard to understand. He was speaking really fast and reading from all sorts of scripts and skipping over the figures really quickly. Think he offered me two different deals but the best was only like £5 less for a higher speed package.

I was polite on the phone and insisted that I wanted to put my 30 days notice in. Just said it was purely about price, that I was not bothered about speed and that I was going to take advantage on another provider's introductory offer for 18 months for £25 p/m even though the speed would only be 59mbps.

Got a call back from an 020 number this morning which was a lady from Virgin. She asked about the recent changes to my contract and got straight to it asking why I was leaving. I just repeated the above and said that I was going to another provider for 18 months at 59mbps for £25 p/m. She then came straight out with an offer of £23 p/m for M125 broadband. I said I was happy with that as it was cheaper than what Sky were offering for a faster speed.

Fairly pleased with that as it is only 50p p/m more than the cheapest deal I could for 59 mbps and £3 p/m cheaper than Virgin Media's current new customer offer for M125 broadband. It sounded like the lady who called me probably could have offered an even better deal if I had pushed her but she was nice and I did not want to push my luck. The new contract does say that they can make changes to the charges during the contract so assume if I will still get stung by the 13.8% price increase after a couple of months? That would still only bring it up to £26 p/m which is the current new customer offer.

Over a year it works out as a saving of £380 once the price increase for the old and new deal is factored in (or £420 if it turns out they do not increase the charges for my new deal). Either way it is a noticeable saving. Just annoying that you have to go through this whole song and dance every 18 months.

I am sure my price increase letter last year said that Virgin apply the price increase to the pre-discount price.

The standard price for M125 broadband appears to be £44 so your contract must include a £21 per month discount to bring your price down to £23.

The new price would be £44+13.8%=£50.07 less the £21 discount = £29.07 per month.

That is a 26.4% increase.

Hmm, not quite the same figures as I have been a customer for a while but similar results. Current price should be £51 but discount on new offer is £28 to get down to £23. 13.8% on £51 is about £7 so that brings it up to £30 p/m. Sneaky buggers, next time I will hold out for more I guess or actually go through with switching. Still cheaper than what I was paying on my last deal.

I have not had any price increase letters to my knowledge yet though. Do you know if these have been sent to customers yet?

DJ123

I have a quick question if that's ok. If you renegotiate a new price in the middle of a contract (which we are able to do with Virgin as they're putting their prices up), does the new price you negotiate only last for the rest of your original contract? Or do they completely terminate your existing contract and sign you up again for a new 18/24 month contract?

victor2

DJ123 said:

I have a quick question if that's ok. If you renegotiate a new price in the middle of a contract (which we are able to do with Virgin as they're putting their prices up), does the new price you negotiate only last for the rest of your original contract? Or do they completely terminate your existing contract and sign you up again for a new 18/24 month contract?

IME it will be a new contract, with an annual price increase.

Futuristic

Contract ends 21st April I assume we should submit cancellation on 22nd this month and refuse any negotiations until after 5-6th April? Or what date is Virgin adding the increases from?

humax123

No you would submit cancellation in March