Virgin Media retention deals (post your haggling successes)

FreeBear

My current contract ends in November. Had an email encouraging me to renew now without any indication of how much it was going to cost. Replying to the email is a waste of time as it just bounces back as undeliverable. CC'd the resolutions team, and they finally replied saying the renewal price will be £31 per month over 18 months (125M package). CityFibre has recently completed cabling in *this area, so can get FTTP from £21 (Now TV, 63M) - OK, not quite as fast as Virgin, but when my internal network is limited to 10M, don't really need much more than that.

Have formally given notice to terminate my contract with Virgin in November. Waiting to see if they confirm and whether the retention team makes contact.

victor2

FreeBear said:

...

Have formally given notice to terminate my contract with Virgin in November. Waiting to see if they confirm and whether the retention team makes contact.

Didn't think they accepted notice over 30 days without applying a termination fee?

FreeBear

victor2 said:

FreeBear said:

...

Have formally given notice to terminate my contract with Virgin in November. Waiting to see if they confirm and whether the retention team makes contact.

Didn't think they accepted notice over 30 days without applying a termination fee?

They require a minimum of 30 days notice, which I've just given them. If they try to impose a charge, I'll lodge (yet another) formal complaint and also invoke the Direct Debit guarantee (or cancel the DD before they try to take it).

Ninj4

FreeBear said:

My current contract ends in November. Had an email encouraging me to renew now without any indication of how much it was going to cost. Replying to the email is a waste of time as it just bounces back as undeliverable. CC'd the resolutions team, and they finally replied saying the renewal price will be £31 per month over 18 months (125M package). CityFibre has recently completed cabling in *this area, so can get FTTP from £21 (Now TV, 63M) - OK, not quite as fast as Virgin, but when my internal network is limited to 10M, don't really need much more than that.

Have formally given notice to terminate my contract with Virgin in November. Waiting to see if they confirm and whether the retention team makes contact.

My contract ends on 24th of September having already serviced my notice about 2 weeks ago. I'm on £32/month with 1gig broadband and unlimited anytime calls. Someone did call me 2 days after cancellation. She wanted to go through the security check but I said I've already got a good offer from Community fibre that I might consider. She went okay, if you have already made up your mind and that was the end of conversation.

They sent me an email today saying my contract is ending and I could renew for this special exclusive offer. I clicked on the offer and it was £70/month on a 18 months contract, lol. 

I will give them another week or so and see if they call me and offer me something worthwhile. If not, we've got community fibre on our street now and I can get 1gig for £25/month with 6 months free on a 12 months contract. 

FreeBear

FreeBear said:  CityFibre has recently completed cabling in *this area, so can get FTTP from £21 (Now TV, 63M)

Just found Octaplus, and they can offer a 150M service for just £21 a month. Not very clear on how much they charge for telephone services. First page says £5 per month and 2000 anytime minutes are included. Yet on the DD setup page, it just says £21, not £26. Either way, still cheaper than Virgin. Registering still requires a mobile number, but the system appears to accept a landline (unlike NowTV).

unique.mo

Retentions offered £18 for M50 and £22 for M125 without landline. Alternatively it was £24 for M250 with landline.

Was informed that was the lowest possible they could do. 

Stingy_Samson

Stingy_Samson said:

My current VM discounts expire on the 11th Oct (so just shy of 2 months away). 

I’m currently paying £51 per month (was £48 before April) for the following…

250Mb BB
Maxit TV (so I can get the TNT Sports channels)
Kids channels (because I was told it was cheaper with rather than without)
Talk Weekends.

So nothing particularly fancy, and I was happy with the £48 deal I haggled for last time around.

I just made the call to explain how I was asked last time to ring about now to arrange a new deal, and I’m seeing if I can get the Sky Sports HD channels on top of my current package.

The “inbound” retentions team told me just now on the phone I could have the same package as I have now (minus the kids channels), but also including the Sky Sports SD & HD channels for a new total price of £69 per month.

This isn’t a particularly high price, but I was wondering whether an “outbound” retention call would lower it much more. So I asked whether I could speak to someone about cancelling my services on the 11th Oct. But I couldn’t go any further. They said I couldn’t speak to anyone about cancelling until 30 days before the end date.

A couple of questions for anyone who may know. Can we not cancel (or give 50 days notice for example to cancel on our end of contract date?)
And secondly, what kind of price could I realistically be offered for the above services? I know I couldn’t get that even as a new customer with Sky, so am I just being greedy? :-)

So, I’m hindsight I think I should have agreed to the Sky Sports HD addition last month when I first enquired about it on the phone. 

To confirm what others have said, I think there will be a lot of unhappy customers when the time comes to renew the contracts.

I rang them again tonight, on hold for just over an hour, then asked what was on offer and whether my original offer from last month was still available (which included TNT sports). Sadly no. So the £69 deal for 250Mb, talk weekends, the package formerly known as Maxit, and Sky Sports HD was gone, and it would cost £87 now to include all of the above and keep TNT Sports. So £18 for that. 

I said sadly that was a deal breaker now, and they went to put me through to Retentions. 5 minutes later, got cut off.

Tried waiting in the original queue again but another hour goes by and no answer. Sounds like I’ll have to try to put my cancellation in tomorrow now instead.

Ninj4

Stingy_Samson said:

Stingy_Samson said:

My current VM discounts expire on the 11th Oct (so just shy of 2 months away). 

I’m currently paying £51 per month (was £48 before April) for the following…

250Mb BB
Maxit TV (so I can get the TNT Sports channels)
Kids channels (because I was told it was cheaper with rather than without)
Talk Weekends.

So nothing particularly fancy, and I was happy with the £48 deal I haggled for last time around.

I just made the call to explain how I was asked last time to ring about now to arrange a new deal, and I’m seeing if I can get the Sky Sports HD channels on top of my current package.

The “inbound” retentions team told me just now on the phone I could have the same package as I have now (minus the kids channels), but also including the Sky Sports SD & HD channels for a new total price of £69 per month.

This isn’t a particularly high price, but I was wondering whether an “outbound” retention call would lower it much more. So I asked whether I could speak to someone about cancelling my services on the 11th Oct. But I couldn’t go any further. They said I couldn’t speak to anyone about cancelling until 30 days before the end date.

A couple of questions for anyone who may know. Can we not cancel (or give 50 days notice for example to cancel on our end of contract date?)
And secondly, what kind of price could I realistically be offered for the above services? I know I couldn’t get that even as a new customer with Sky, so am I just being greedy? :-)

So, I’m hindsight I think I should have agreed to the Sky Sports HD addition last month when I first enquired about it on the phone. 

To confirm what others have said, I think there will be a lot of unhappy customers when the time comes to renew the contracts.

I rang them again tonight, on hold for just over an hour, then asked what was on offer and whether my original offer from last month was still available (which included TNT sports). Sadly no. So the £69 deal for 250Mb, talk weekends, the package formerly known as Maxit, and Sky Sports HD was gone, and it would cost £87 now to include all of the above and keep TNT Sports. So £18 for that. 

I said sadly that was a deal breaker now, and they went to put me through to Retentions. 5 minutes later, got cut off.

Tried waiting in the original queue again but another hour goes by and no answer. Sounds like I’ll have to try to put my cancellation in tomorrow now instead.

That's ridiculous. They will lose a lot of customers, including myself. My contract is up for renewal in a couple of weeks. I've already served my 30 days notice but waiting till Friday this week for a call from outbound retentions team. If they don't offer anything decent, I'm moving to Community fibre who have recently cabled our street. 

Stingy_Samson

Ninj4 said:

Stingy_Samson said:

Stingy_Samson said:

My current VM discounts expire on the 11th Oct (so just shy of 2 months away). 

I’m currently paying £51 per month (was £48 before April) for the following…

250Mb BB
Maxit TV (so I can get the TNT Sports channels)
Kids channels (because I was told it was cheaper with rather than without)
Talk Weekends.

So nothing particularly fancy, and I was happy with the £48 deal I haggled for last time around.

I just made the call to explain how I was asked last time to ring about now to arrange a new deal, and I’m seeing if I can get the Sky Sports HD channels on top of my current package.

The “inbound” retentions team told me just now on the phone I could have the same package as I have now (minus the kids channels), but also including the Sky Sports SD & HD channels for a new total price of £69 per month.

This isn’t a particularly high price, but I was wondering whether an “outbound” retention call would lower it much more. So I asked whether I could speak to someone about cancelling my services on the 11th Oct. But I couldn’t go any further. They said I couldn’t speak to anyone about cancelling until 30 days before the end date.

A couple of questions for anyone who may know. Can we not cancel (or give 50 days notice for example to cancel on our end of contract date?)
And secondly, what kind of price could I realistically be offered for the above services? I know I couldn’t get that even as a new customer with Sky, so am I just being greedy? :-)

So, I’m hindsight I think I should have agreed to the Sky Sports HD addition last month when I first enquired about it on the phone. 

To confirm what others have said, I think there will be a lot of unhappy customers when the time comes to renew the contracts.

I rang them again tonight, on hold for just over an hour, then asked what was on offer and whether my original offer from last month was still available (which included TNT sports). Sadly no. So the £69 deal for 250Mb, talk weekends, the package formerly known as Maxit, and Sky Sports HD was gone, and it would cost £87 now to include all of the above and keep TNT Sports. So £18 for that. 

I said sadly that was a deal breaker now, and they went to put me through to Retentions. 5 minutes later, got cut off.

Tried waiting in the original queue again but another hour goes by and no answer. Sounds like I’ll have to try to put my cancellation in tomorrow now instead.

That's ridiculous. They will lose a lot of customers, including myself. My contract is up for renewal in a couple of weeks. I've already served my 30 days notice but waiting till Friday this week for a call from outbound retentions team. If they don't offer anything decent, I'm moving to Community fibre who have recently cabled our street. 

Unfortunately my BB options are limited, and without VM, I’d have to drop to 61mb at best on my street. I certainly can’t justify Virgin’s TV prices now though barring an exceptional keep/win back offer. 

FreeBear

Stingy_Samson said:

Ninj4 said:

Stingy_Samson said:

Stingy_Samson said:

My current VM discounts expire on the 11th Oct (so just shy of 2 months away). 

I’m currently paying £51 per month (was £48 before April) for the following…

250Mb BB
Maxit TV (so I can get the TNT Sports channels)
Kids channels (because I was told it was cheaper with rather than without)
Talk Weekends.

So nothing particularly fancy, and I was happy with the £48 deal I haggled for last time around.

I just made the call to explain how I was asked last time to ring about now to arrange a new deal, and I’m seeing if I can get the Sky Sports HD channels on top of my current package.

The “inbound” retentions team told me just now on the phone I could have the same package as I have now (minus the kids channels), but also including the Sky Sports SD & HD channels for a new total price of £69 per month.

This isn’t a particularly high price, but I was wondering whether an “outbound” retention call would lower it much more. So I asked whether I could speak to someone about cancelling my services on the 11th Oct. But I couldn’t go any further. They said I couldn’t speak to anyone about cancelling until 30 days before the end date.

A couple of questions for anyone who may know. Can we not cancel (or give 50 days notice for example to cancel on our end of contract date?)
And secondly, what kind of price could I realistically be offered for the above services? I know I couldn’t get that even as a new customer with Sky, so am I just being greedy? :-)

So, I’m hindsight I think I should have agreed to the Sky Sports HD addition last month when I first enquired about it on the phone. 

To confirm what others have said, I think there will be a lot of unhappy customers when the time comes to renew the contracts.

I rang them again tonight, on hold for just over an hour, then asked what was on offer and whether my original offer from last month was still available (which included TNT sports). Sadly no. So the £69 deal for 250Mb, talk weekends, the package formerly known as Maxit, and Sky Sports HD was gone, and it would cost £87 now to include all of the above and keep TNT Sports. So £18 for that. 

I said sadly that was a deal breaker now, and they went to put me through to Retentions. 5 minutes later, got cut off.

Tried waiting in the original queue again but another hour goes by and no answer. Sounds like I’ll have to try to put my cancellation in tomorrow now instead.

That's ridiculous. They will lose a lot of customers, including myself. My contract is up for renewal in a couple of weeks. I've already served my 30 days notice but waiting till Friday this week for a call from outbound retentions team. If they don't offer anything decent, I'm moving to Community fibre who have recently cabled our street. 

Unfortunately my BB options are limited, and without VM, I’d have to drop to 61mb at best on my street. I certainly can’t justify Virgin’s TV prices now though barring an exceptional keep/win back offer. 

Unless there are multiple occupants streaming HD video, you could probably get away with 30-60M and not notice the difference.

Over the years, I've had various speed "upgrades" starting at 10M, then 30M, 100M, and now 125M, and to be honest, I don't see any real improvement.