Sky TV retention deals ( post your haggling successes )

freeganneist

MouldyOldDough said:

freeganneist said:

I'm in the same boat. 

I'm due to be disconnected from Sky Q today and have received a text saying they've sent the packaging for the box to be returned. I spoke to the winback team (which prematurely contacted me on Friday) and their offer is still £17 per month more than my previous contract.

I proactively took the NOW TV Sports offer at £20 a month, to test it out. It's not ideal - it has a 40 second lag for F1 - but it's OK and I only need it during the F1 season. I can now take the NOW TV Entertainment offer at £1 a month. If I want Netflix I can get the cheapest version at £4.99 a month (with ads) and I can move to a cheaper broadband package with the same speed. The total would be £17 less than my old Sky contract, and £34 less than what they're currently offering. That's a saving of at least £400 a year (assuming I pick and choose NOW TV deals) and even more as I don't need any of them all the time. 

I now have to weigh up the inconvenience of the alternatives. But at the moment it would take a very good deal from Sky to make me renew, and quite honestly I'm sick of having to do this every time the contract ends - and also of the faff of having to deal with them when the billing is wrong, which it usually is in the first few months of any new contract. I got rid of my back-up Virgin broadband for the same reason - the product was fine (and we wanted a back-up while working from home) but I was sick of the silly games, poor billing, and terrible customer service. I'm reaching the stage where I'd rather do without any of these organisations than have their friction. 

I have been a Sky customer for 22 years and registered with Sky Priority Customers who do offer me a good deal / possibly the best available deal, every time my renewal is due !

I'm very pleased for you

Alberto_Frog

I have been a Sky customer for 22 years and registered with Sky Priority Customers who do offer me a good deal / possibly the best available deal, every time my renewal is due !

My experience is different - I find that Sky don’t care a jot about loyalty & make better offers available to new customers.
Sky VIP is a complete waste of time and nothing more than a “marketing ploy”.
I don’t know about “Sky Priority Customers” - it’s something I’m not familiar with!

Breadlegs

I've got TV and Broadband with Sky, and have just renewed within my last 30 days, getting the following deal:
Sky signature, cinema, HD + UHD, Ultimate TV (Netflix's top tier plan) - £45 (should be £73)
My ultrafast broadband offer has been extended for a year at £27 (should be £43)

There wasn't any hard haggling, and to be honest I have never had to. I've always been polite, and they have always found an offer that is either cheaper, or within a couple of pounds of my existing deal. That's as long as you speak to retentions. Everyone else seems clueless. 

My best advice is keep an eye on new customer offers at key times like black Friday, often they actually apply to existing customers too and you can just call up and sign onto them. 

Breadlegs

I should add that the TV is a new 18 month contract with the deals fixed in for that period. 

The broadband is out of contract Jan 2024 and my current deal has just been extended until Jan 2025 without commuting to an extension of the contract. 

Brimble

brewerdave said:

Brimble said:

ImranQ said:

Brimble said:

Oh no, now what are we supposed to do? I was all ready to call Sky tomorrow and discuss with them their Comeback20 deal that we got through the post of £23pm for Sky Q, Signature and Netflix, then yesterday I got an email from Now offering their basic package for just £1pm for the next 6 months. This leaves us with 3 very different options:

 - Sky Q, Signature and Netflix for £23pm - most expensive, but by far the best functionality
 - Now for £1pm - cheapest, but least functionality / convenience
 - Now plus Boost for £7pm (or possibly even less if there is ever an offer for Boost) - middle option, includes HD and ad-skipping, but only for Now channels, not ITV, C4 etc.

We've been trying Now and the various other streaming apps (BBC, ITV, C4 etc) for the last month or so, but have to say that we hate it. All the apps work slightly differently, they are glitchy and often take a good few seconds to load and even crush sometimes, plus with streaming you can't skip adverts on the terrestrial channels, or enjoy normal 'Sky' functionality, unless you buy a premium subscription for each individual app! But having said all of that, £1pm or even £7pm are very different to £23pm - if the price difference was small we'd definitely take Sky Q, but is it '23 times better'?

Would be interested to hear if others have had this debate in their households...

How about phoning Sky and telling them you have an offer which you are going for but you prefer to stay with Sky if possible as you have been them and will they better their offer ? You don't try, you don't get..

. Is the Sky package really 23 times better than basic NOW, or 3 times better than NOW with Boost? It's a tough one...

The major difference is that NOW is a streaming service - no ability to record - and as I have found, not everything broadcast "live" on Sky ,is available to download/stream later.

I guess this is all about how each household watches TV. We did a little experiment over the summer - we monitored over the space of a month or so what we recorded that we couldn't have just got on catch up. For us, during that period, it was next to nothing (I think there were a couple of live music festival broadcasts). PErhaps it's about different programme preferences, but we've found hardly anything broadcast live but not available later that we wanted to watch. That being the case, for us I don't think the lack of recording will be a problem. The more significant issues for us between Sky Q and NOW are:

 - lack of single EPG from which to select programmes to watch live purely for 'lazy' or 'background' watching;
 - inconsistent functionality between the freeview channel apps (BBC, ITVX, C4 etc all work differently, which is annoying);
 - lack of ad-skipping. Even with NOW Boost, that only removes ads from Sky channels, you still need to sit through them on ITV, C4 etc, and you can't forward them;
 - lack of pause / rewind for live freeview channels on their various apps. So if i want to rewind live TV by 10 seconds to show something to my wife, I can't with NOW, but I can with Sky Q.

I guess we just need to decide whether solving all those problems is worth the significant extra cost. It's just annoying that it's the freeivew channels, not the Sky channels, which are the problem!

Alberto_Frog

Breadlegs said:

I've got TV and Broadband with Sky, and have just renewed within my last 30 days, getting the following deal:
Sky signature, cinema, HD + UHD, Ultimate TV (Netflix's top tier plan) - £45 (should be £73)
My ultrafast broadband offer has been extended for a year at £27 (should be £43)

Some people have reported that they have Signature & Netflix for £22 - so effectively you are paying £23 extra for Cinema, HD + UHD
Obviously you are happy with this deal (which is the main thing) - I personally wouldn’t pay £23 extra for Cinema, HD & UHD (including Netflix)

MouldyOldDough

I am paying an extra £8 for HD but the app has a £4 offer
Can I cancel at £8 and add at £4? 

xxdiddiexx

Is it always best to go through to retentions when renegotiating?

ScoobyDoobyDooLondon

Any good offers on Sky Q retention deals?

I've got 3 days to go before my Sky is cancelled. No one has rang but had poor email offers. 

Currently paying £55 for the following:

Sky Signature

Ultimate TV Add on

Sky Kids

Sky Sports - Complete Pack

Sky Cinema

Sky Sports HD

Sky HD

Multiscreen

Ultra HD

Looking for a similar deal, is this likely with Black Friday offers?

Happy to let my contract get cancelled and if nothing decent comes up, will go down the Freeview route.

antuk

My contract/discounts run out in December, previously the future bill estimate showed full price, but now its updated (without me doing anything or recontracting) to a 30% discount - not as good as the 50% I get at the moment, but considering it doesnt involve signing a new contract or even talking to them/haggling feels pretty good for the lazy people - I wonder if they are doing this to reduce the volume of people trying to haggle