Virgin Media retention deals (post your haggling successes)

dondo

My contract with Virgin is due to run out in the middle of November.  Does anyone know when you get (if any) initial e-mails/messages about renewal deals just so I know what the starting position is?

PZ19

dondo said:

My contract with Virgin is due to run out in the middle of November.  Does anyone know when you get (if any) initial e-mails/messages about renewal deals just so I know what the starting position is?

Mines up in December, got an email offer for £72 last week.  Only problem with that is I pay £60 now.  Haha nice try Virgin.  30 days before your contract ends call them, if you don’t like what they offer then, put in your cancellation 

ImranQ

I renewed my 1gig (with phone line) service for £51 per month last Thursday. Currently in a cooling period but am going to phone them this week to cancel. If they improve the offer then fine otherwise may move to Vodaphone for the equivalent service which I am getting offered for £36 per month or BT Openreach which is £47.50 (still cheaper than Virgin).

ImranQ

dondo said:

My contract with Virgin is due to run out in the middle of November.  Does anyone know when you get (if any) initial e-mails/messages about renewal deals just so I know what the starting position is?

From experience they won't offer you anything except the higher price unless you threaten to cancel. Even then they may only go to your previous price - for me it was £51 but am going to cancel this week. So you may have risk full cancellation and hoping they contact you during the notice period (I heard they usually relent most of the time).

dondo

ImranQ said:

dondo said:

My contract with Virgin is due to run out in the middle of November.  Does anyone know when you get (if any) initial e-mails/messages about renewal deals just so I know what the starting position is?

From experience they won't offer you anything except the higher price unless you threaten to cancel. Even then they may only go to your previous price - for me it was £51 but am going to cancel this week. So you may have risk full cancellation and hoping they contact you during the notice period (I heard they usually relent most of the time).

To be honest if they were willing to keep me on my existing rate I'd be very happy as that is a good deal.  Phoned Sky out of interest last week as was with them for years before moving and the guy there was honest and said they'd struggle to get close to it.

FreeBear

dondo said:

My contract with Virgin is due to run out in the middle of November.  Does anyone know when you get (if any) initial e-mails/messages about renewal deals just so I know what the starting position is?

You should have had an email telling you that your contract is about to expire, and urges you to renew. It will not contain any information about the cost - Mine didn't, and I sent a terse email to their complaints department telling them that without the relevant information, I could not make an informed decision.

Have since sent several emails, and used their chat system to tell them that I will be terminating the contract come November. Not had any calls back from the retentions team.

ImranQ

ImranQ said:

From experience they won't offer you anything except the higher price unless you threaten to cancel. Even then they may only go to your previous price - for me it was £51 but am going to cancel this week. So you may have risk full cancellation and hoping they contact you during the notice period (I heard they usually relent most of the time).

So yesterday I had a bit of time and was searching for offers. The best price I have found for close to 1gig is 900meg with Vodafone (BT Full fibre) for £33 for existing mobile customers and £36 for non customers - includes free landline (allows transfer of no) & evening/weekend calls. For another £12 they also give you Wifi 6E router AND 4G mobile broadband backup if the main broadband fails! This is a 24 month contract.
So I'm thinking now to ditch Virgin on this basis if Virgin don't give a decent offer! TBH I am inclined to ditch Virgin anyway as this offer seems brilliant!

ImranQ

I've just given notice to Virgin just now to leave. I got through to CS and then finally transferred to the retention team. They couldn't match the price of £33 or the mobile internet backup. The best the person could offer was upgrade my router from a V4 to a V5 even though last week one of his colleagues had said they couldn't upgrade it and I would have to put up with my existing V4! At the time the best they could do was for me to have to apply separately to their tech support but they may or may not upgrade... (sounds like a fob off).

PZ19

ImranQ said:

I've just given notice to Virgin just now to leave. I got through to CS and then finally transferred to the retention team. They couldn't match the price of £33 or the mobile internet backup. The best the person could offer was upgrade my router from a V4 to a V5 even though last week one of his colleagues had said they couldn't upgrade it and I would have to put up with my existing V4! At the time the best they could do was for me to have to apply separately to their tech support but they may or may not upgrade... (sounds like a fob off).

You’ll probably get a call tomorrow with a better deal

ImranQ

PZ19 said:

ImranQ said:

I've just given notice to Virgin just now to leave. I got through to CS and then finally transferred to the retention team. They couldn't match the price of £33 or the mobile internet backup. The best the person could offer was upgrade my router from a V4 to a V5 even though last week one of his colleagues had said they couldn't upgrade it and I would have to put up with my existing V4! At the time the best they could do was for me to have to apply separately to their tech support but they may or may not upgrade... (sounds like a fob off).

You’ll probably get a call tomorrow with a better deal

I've placed the order for the £45 internet from Vodafone. For that you get (per quote):
1) New Ultra Hub with WiFi 6E
2) Super WiFi 6E Booster
3) Dedicated WiFi Xperts
4) Automatic 4G Broadband Back-up

Not really too bothered about 3). Other three seem good. The last one seems very appealing. It comes with100GB per month data if needed and I was told that if the outage lasted longer, the data allocation would be increased.