How to stay with Virgin Media with the best deal reserved for new customer

Tintin_en_ecosse

Notice - A partner, housemate or other party will be required for this work and 24-36 hours without VM service

Background - I have been using Virgin Media services (VM) for many years because they were the cheapest option every time I was due to renew my contract. However, out of laziness and anticipating difficult discussions, every time I would delay the renewal and pay the default rolling on monthly price, which is about x2 the price a new customer pays.  About 2 years ago, frustrated of paying more than twice what a new VM customer would pay and being offered only a drop of 5% in my monthly cost, I challenged a VM agent with the scenario where I would request a cancellation with 30 days notice and my partner would register as a new customer requesting the service to start in 31 days (i.e. a day after the disconnection of the service). To my surprise, I was not met with any reticence from the agent. Instead, the agent confirmed it was possible and even advised me to refer my partner before requesting the disconnection so we both would benefit IN CASH of this exercise. Few months later, I received a check for my referral (by then my account was closed) and my partner had the new account credited with their referral.

Fast forward 2 years later, I asked similar questions and get the same response from the sales team. This time, I used the MSE site to get the reference of an even better deal (for a VM service) than it is offered on the VM website. This deal included some cashback. The VM agent went out of his way to check if I could get both the referral fees and the cash back!!! Unfortunately is was not possible so I kept the offer and referral fee (which was higher than the cash back) and dropped the cash back.

I know now that I can get this negotiation completed within 1 hour, get >£100 cash back (currently £150 = £75*2) and will have the latest VM equipment in 1 phone call.

P.S.: The retention team will try to convince you that it is not possible (even if you explained that you have already done it). They will try to convince you to transfer your partner onto your account 1st which will then force you to go through a cooling off period of 90 days following the disconnection. This is place where you can save your time as they can not match the deals for new customers.

The best is to start by the new customer team who will forward you to the retention team and will call you back after to complete the "transition"

N.B.: I have never tried this with any service provider but I suspect it should be possible.

Tintin_en_ecosse

Small correction -> N.B.: I have never tried this with any service providers other than VM but I suspect it should be possible.

mohammed1111

Possible with sky , although you end up with a new phone number but if you don't use it doesn't really matter. Plus point with sky is no loss of service 

vacheron

I may try that next time. 

What has worked for me the last couple of times (and a bit less risky) is to simply sign up to BT (or whoever are doing a good deal), select an installation date of about 5 weeks into the future and tell the new provider you want to port your landline number.

On completition the new providers systems will automatically and almost immediately send a number porting request to Virgin, the Virgin retentions system will identify this as they are losing you and you will get a "courtesy call" in a couple of days "just to check that this is correct". When you confirm, bang, you are straight through to the top tier, UK retensions team who have far better deals avalable for you than if you had called the entry level "threatening to leave" overseas helplines.

If they can do you a better deal then you can cancel the new provider under the 14 day cancellation right, and if they can't do better you can give Virgin your 30 days notice right then and there, the end of the 30 day period will correspond with the original installation date of the new provider with a couple of days overlap for safety. 

My example,   2 years ago paying £75, rising to £95 after end of contract, called helpline, told best they could do was £78 with new contract. Signed up to BT, 2 days later called back from Virgin and offered £39! 

Tintin_en_ecosse

UPDATE - I got a call from the top tier retention team about 1 week ago to drop my £44.50 / month bill for Broadband & phone (do not use landline)  to £17/month. Over 18 months, this would have been a better deal with the cash back from the "refer a friend" scheme at £50 *2 ( the current customer and next customer). However, as the scheme at the time was offering £75 each = £150, I was still better of by £30 for the cost of a disconnection for 36 hours and £23.5/month for 18 months. 
N.B.: the options were:
A - no disconnection and stay with them at £17/month for 18 months = £306
B - 36 hours or less disconnection and sign-up at £23.50/month for 18 months + £75 *2 cash back = £273