Virgin Media retention deals (post your haggling successes)

EverOptimiser

This isn't an spectacular deal, but just good enough. I was paying just over £40 for basic (Mixit) TV and 250gb broadband and phone, which had started as £33 a month two years earlier. Called the normal customer service, gave them the option of matching Sky (with no mid contract price rise), they didn't, so gave them the termination notice. This time, didn't get a callback. However, 10 days later went on the chat, after 2 hours of to-ing and fro-ing, got the same package for £28 a month, plus a 10GB O2 SIM (boosted to 20 GB) for another £6, which apparently you can cancel at any time, but comes with 6 months of free Disney+, Amazon Prime or Audible.

Again not spectacular, but quite a decent deal.

My only worry is their plan to phase out TiVo/V6, which restricts channel-hopping/buffering and ad-skipping.

JSmithy45AD

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82091873#Comment_82091873

What makes you think that Sky have no mid contract price rises?

If you're referring to recordings with the last paragraph, Sky Q only has a couple of years or so to go itself, we'll all be streaming sooner rather than later.

EverOptimiser

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82092891#Comment_82092891

As it's not baked into Sky contracts, they have to give you 30 days to either accept, haggle or switch.

And I know that streaming is the direction of travel, but it's extremely annoying. Old school boxes that let you record, pause and fast forward give people a degree of control and streaming takes it back to the companies. Sky is asking for an extra £5 if you want to skip the ads.

Soon they may find a way of disabling the mute button during ads as well (or start charging for "mute during ads")

JSmithy45AD

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82093932#Comment_82093932

That only applies to Sky Q, Sky HD+ (both of which are going to be defunct by probably 2029) and Sky Broadband, Sky Stream and Sky Glass don't have that get out of jail free card.

staffsuk

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82090267#Comment_82090267

Further to my last post - only a couple of days left until Im cut off. I tried the 6970 number last week, and the price actually went up to £21.50 for M125 alone + 2 price increases. So I've no idea why they are handing out Volt M250 for £19. I queried it and he said there's nothing they could do. Feeling frustrated…

victor2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82117635#Comment_82117635

Have you got an alternative you can go with? If so, take it. VM are facing serious competition in many areas now.

staffsuk

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82117675#Comment_82117675

Well I tried again via 6970 and 6951, neither could offer anything better than £21 for M125. I thought I would give chat a go, and they managed £19 for M125, so I accepted that.

victor2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82117807#Comment_82117807

24 month contract with annual increases presumably. At least when that contract ends, you should have serious options, and/or VM will have increased their lowest speed to 250 or more. Their weakness is their upload speeds at present, typically about 10% of their download. Doesn't bother most people, but FTTP offers the same speed in both directions.

staffsuk

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82117842#Comment_82117842

Yup - two increases of £4, but 6970 did tell one of my relatives that could be questioned and potentially waived when due. We'll see.
Just tried a couple of speed tests, more than enough for my meagre needs.

victor2

At least with VM, you do get the quoted speed and failures are very rare. That's been my experience over many years anyway!