Virgin Media - Retention Deals?

[megaphone]

bolidemichael said:

I think that I get a pretty crap deal -- I was on £55 per month and it increased to £70 -- I get Maxit tv (no sports or movies) and 250mb BB. The wifi router is something like a hub 3 but it's used as a hub rather than a router, as I push that to a mesh.

The black friday deal for new customers £70 gets an all singing all dancing package with films, sports, 500mb, £25 O2 sim package -- quite a way off what I receive!

I don't know what other options I have, however, for when my renewal arrived on 3rd December (when they stick it up to £100!). I have all the cables for virgin fibre under the floor boards for the living room and if I go to another provider (Sky?), I'll have to install a dish and wires etc... not something that I really fancy tbh.

is it just a case of bluffing as far as I can with Virgin? Can I call them now and ask them for the Black Friday deal in exchange for a contract commitment?

What do you watch on TV? If it's mainly stuff you can get on Freeview, then ditch the TV and use an aerial and apps.

[Basil Brush]

Arnold Cunningham said:

I used the chat - albeit it took a while to get to the front of the queue & get a human - but I just had it sitting there in the background while I got on with other stuff. And just said no thanks to any offers to renew. It was actually the easiest engagement I've had with them

I've used the live chat for my last 2 renewals and been offered better deals than the people I spoke to on phonecalls could.

[judas]

Anyone who's cancelled their VM account and been asked to return kit (router, tivo boxes etc) - did they request the return once the account was closed or before? My contract theoretically terminates on Monday and apart from a perfunctory phone call and what looks to be a reduced final bill, I've not heard a peep from them.

[The Hofff]

bolidemichael - Go into your account online and check the 'upgrade my package' place
You might find a decent offer in there as I did.

When I phoned they were well off it and kept saying all prices on their website were only for new customers.

Edited by The Hofff on Thursday 9th November 16:24

Edited by The Hofff on Thursday 9th November 16:25

[Arnold Cunningham]

judas said:

Anyone who's cancelled their VM account and been asked to return kit (router, tivo boxes etc) - did they request the return once the account was closed or before? My contract theoretically terminates on Monday and apart from a perfunctory phone call and what looks to be a reduced final bill, I've not heard a peep from them.

IIRC, before closure they said they "may" want it back.
Then a bit after it had finished I got a mail saying "please return it", and noting that a prepaid box was on it's way to me.
That box took a few days to arrive - I popped the modem in and sent it back. Job done - have the the email back from them confirming they got it.
All worked well.

[granville997]

Paying £66 for 125mb tv and land line, new customer deal is £32 for 250mb tv and land line so that was my target,as not wanting to set new email address.
Tried on online chat best offer was current deal @£36 the new customer deal was £39 to me. So cancelled on chat two days later phone call nice chap offered new customer deal @£29 so extra 125mb and £37less then current, happy @ £29

[JJJSW7]

I was on Maxit TV = 190+ TV Channels, M350 broadband (but only getting 125MB), and Call Weekends (which I never use). Was £44/month. Raised to £100/month.

Used online chat to negotiate.

Was offered Mega TV 3 (the new Maxit, but no TNT Sports), M250 and call Weekends for £52/month.

Instantly dropped to £42/month when I refused the offer.

I’m holding out for something closer to £33/month based on the current Bigger Bundle for new joiners.

Sky TV gives equivalent of M100 and all its channels including Netflix for £36/month.

The chat agent refused to offer anything better than £42/month but I have asked to cancel and will see what retentions offer when they call me.

[kingston12]

Here I am again, I can't believe it's been 17 months since the last 'negotiation'!

I've been on M250 BB, Maxit TV and Weekend Telephone for a few years. Last time around, I went through the full cancellation process and they agreed to keep the price at the £45 I'd previously been paying.

The price then increased to £49 with the inflationary clause in April.

This time around, the initial call handler offered the same package for £51 straight away. I've accepted for now as I had to go into a meeting, but will probably challenge it again during the next few days when I've got more time.

Edited by kingston12 on Wednesday 22 November 13:57

[kingston12]

JJJSW7 said:

I was on Maxit TV = 190+ TV Channels, M350 broadband (but only getting 125MB), and Call Weekends (which I never use). Was £44/month. Raised to £100/month.

Used online chat to negotiate.

Was offered Mega TV 3 (the new Maxit, but no TNT Sports), M250 and call Weekends for £52/month.

Instantly dropped to £42/month when I refused the offer.

I’m holding out for something closer to £33/month based on the current Bigger Bundle for new joiners.

Sky TV gives equivalent of M100 and all its channels including Netflix for £36/month.

The chat agent refused to offer anything better than £42/month but I have asked to cancel and will see what retentions offer when they call me.

Similar to my package, but slightly better prices!

They've now offered me Mega TV with TNT Sports as an add on and that does appear to be the same as Maxit. TNT is the only thing I really watch on TV (and even then only very rarely).

The strange thing is that they are fine to leave me on Maxit if I let my existing contract roll on (at £100 a month!) but won't allow it on a new contract.

Did you end up getting a better offer than the £42?

[SteBrown91]

VM keep ringing me to sell me a SIM or some other nonsense I don't want.

Ive told them every time I do not want another call and to remove me from the list but they still call.

Only renewed in August but decided I'm leaving once the contracts up they are getting on my nerves.

[1175Mk1]

Anyone got a decent deal recently? Currently going through the cancel and improve stage....

[bolidemichael]

megaphone said:

bolidemichael said:

I think that I get a pretty crap deal -- I was on £55 per month and it increased to £70 -- I get Maxit tv (no sports or movies) and 250mb BB. The wifi router is something like a hub 3 but it's used as a hub rather than a router, as I push that to a mesh.

The black friday deal for new customers £70 gets an all singing all dancing package with films, sports, 500mb, £25 O2 sim package -- quite a way off what I receive!

I don't know what other options I have, however, for when my renewal arrived on 3rd December (when they stick it up to £100!). I have all the cables for virgin fibre under the floor boards for the living room and if I go to another provider (Sky?), I'll have to install a dish and wires etc... not something that I really fancy tbh.

is it just a case of bluffing as far as I can with Virgin? Can I call them now and ask them for the Black Friday deal in exchange for a contract commitment?

What do you watch on TV? If it's mainly stuff you can get on Freeview, then ditch the TV and use an aerial and apps.

Good point, it's terrestrial and BT Sport/TNT for Champions League and MotoGP

[bolidemichael]

The Hofff said:

bolidemichael - Go into your account online and check the 'upgrade my package' place
You might find a decent offer in there as I did.

When I phoned they were well off it and kept saying all prices on their website were only for new customers.

Edited by The Hofff on Thursday 9th November 16:24

Edited by The Hofff on Thursday 9th November 16:25

Thanks, I shall do so. For some reason, I missed all of these replies.

[megaphone]

bolidemichael said:

megaphone said:

bolidemichael said:

I think that I get a pretty crap deal -- I was on £55 per month and it increased to £70 -- I get Maxit tv (no sports or movies) and 250mb BB. The wifi router is something like a hub 3 but it's used as a hub rather than a router, as I push that to a mesh.

The black friday deal for new customers £70 gets an all singing all dancing package with films, sports, 500mb, £25 O2 sim package -- quite a way off what I receive!

I don't know what other options I have, however, for when my renewal arrived on 3rd December (when they stick it up to £100!). I have all the cables for virgin fibre under the floor boards for the living room and if I go to another provider (Sky?), I'll have to install a dish and wires etc... not something that I really fancy tbh.

is it just a case of bluffing as far as I can with Virgin? Can I call them now and ask them for the Black Friday deal in exchange for a contract commitment?

What do you watch on TV? If it's mainly stuff you can get on Freeview, then ditch the TV and use an aerial and apps.

Good point, it's terrestrial and BT Sport/TNT for Champions League and MotoGP

So you have your answer. Use an aerial and Freeview, ditch the TV and stream TNT from elsewhere. You should be able to get BB only for £20-25 or even less if you haggle.

[Tye Green]

megaphone said:

bolidemichael said:

megaphone said:

bolidemichael said:

I think that I get a pretty crap deal -- I was on £55 per month and it increased to £70 -- I get Maxit tv (no sports or movies) and 250mb BB. The wifi router is something like a hub 3 but it's used as a hub rather than a router, as I push that to a mesh.

The black friday deal for new customers £70 gets an all singing all dancing package with films, sports, 500mb, £25 O2 sim package -- quite a way off what I receive!

I don't know what other options I have, however, for when my renewal arrived on 3rd December (when they stick it up to £100!). I have all the cables for virgin fibre under the floor boards for the living room and if I go to another provider (Sky?), I'll have to install a dish and wires etc... not something that I really fancy tbh.

is it just a case of bluffing as far as I can with Virgin? Can I call them now and ask them for the Black Friday deal in exchange for a contract commitment?

What do you watch on TV? If it's mainly stuff you can get on Freeview, then ditch the TV and use an aerial and apps.

Good point, it's terrestrial and BT Sport/TNT for Champions League and MotoGP

So you have your answer. Use an aerial and Freeview, ditch the TV and stream TNT from elsewhere. You should be able to get BB only for £20-25 or even less if you haggle.

We binned Virgin and bought a firestick for one TV (the other ones a smart TV) and do everything through a Three 5g router (no aerial) and there's no need to install any cables. If you had a basic package from Virgin you'd find most of the channels are available free anyway through the firestick and there's also many other channels on the firestick which are not available from Virgin on any of their packages.

IMO the only benefits of Virgin are 1) excellent and reliable internet connection and 2) if you like frequent channel hopping or recording stuff their UI is better.

I reckon Virgin's days are numbered because most kids just want good internet for their phones / iPads and when 5g is mainstream and available everywhere wired connections will be generally obsolete.

Since we binned them they have kept sending progressively cheaper offers and currently that is £28 / month for 250BB plus 2 @ TV boxes .

Edited by Tye Green on Tuesday 5th December 11:37

[Hoofy]

Tye Green said:

We binned Virgin and bought a firestick for one TV (the other ones a smart TV) and do everything through a Three 5g router (no aerial) and there's no need to install any cables. If you had a basic package from Virgin you'd find most of the channels are available free anyway through the firestick and there's also many other channels on the firestick which are not available from Virgin on any of their packages.

How do you replicate the ability to go through channels like you can on a traditional TV and even with a standard free subscription via Virgin or whatever? I know I can access BBC through a BBC app, ITV through ITVX but that's a faff doing it across 100 channels.

[bolidemichael]

Tye Green said:

megaphone said:

bolidemichael said:

megaphone said:

bolidemichael said:

I think that I get a pretty crap deal -- I was on £55 per month and it increased to £70 -- I get Maxit tv (no sports or movies) and 250mb BB. The wifi router is something like a hub 3 but it's used as a hub rather than a router, as I push that to a mesh.

The black friday deal for new customers £70 gets an all singing all dancing package with films, sports, 500mb, £25 O2 sim package -- quite a way off what I receive!

I don't know what other options I have, however, for when my renewal arrived on 3rd December (when they stick it up to £100!). I have all the cables for virgin fibre under the floor boards for the living room and if I go to another provider (Sky?), I'll have to install a dish and wires etc... not something that I really fancy tbh.

is it just a case of bluffing as far as I can with Virgin? Can I call them now and ask them for the Black Friday deal in exchange for a contract commitment?

What do you watch on TV? If it's mainly stuff you can get on Freeview, then ditch the TV and use an aerial and apps.

Good point, it's terrestrial and BT Sport/TNT for Champions League and MotoGP

So you have your answer. Use an aerial and Freeview, ditch the TV and stream TNT from elsewhere. You should be able to get BB only for £20-25 or even less if you haggle.

We binned Virgin and bought a firestick for one TV (the other ones a smart TV) and do everything through a Three 5g router (no aerial) and there's no need to install any cables. If you had a basic package from Virgin you'd find most of the channels are available free anyway through the firestick and there's also many other channels on the firestick which are not available from Virgin on any of their packages.

IMO the only benefits of Virgin are 1) excellent and reliable internet connection and 2) if you like frequent channel hopping or recording stuff their UI is better.

I reckon Virgin's days are numbered because most kids just want good internet for their phones / iPads and when 5g is mainstream and available everywhere wired connections will be generally obsolete.

Since we binned them they have kept sending progressively cheaper offers and currently that is £28 / month for 250BB plus 2 @ TV boxes .

They offered my brother M350 Fibre Broadband, Maxit TV with TNT bolt on, Virgin Phone and talk weekends - £46 p/m fixed until May '25.

I missed the cancellation date of 3rd December, so now my package is on £100 and they offered me £72, so I've cancelled.

[outnumbered]

I'm nearly out of contract and the monthly cost (2 TV boxes, 300M BB plus phone) is going up to £110 from £80 (which was already way too high). We've had two multihour broadband outages in the last month, in fact it's down again now.

So I've arranged for FTTH via Zen, 300M bidirectional, for £32 a month and will cancel VM when that's installed and working. We'll use streaming sticks for most stuff and Freeview for any live terrestrial TV.

It's a bit less convenient, but I have just got so pissed off with Virgin's price rises and utterly ste customer service.

[Whistle]

bolidemichael said:

They offered my brother M350 Fibre Broadband, Maxit TV with TNT bolt on, Virgin Phone and talk weekends - £46 p/m fixed until May '25.

I missed the cancellation date of 3rd December, so now my package is on £100 and they offered me £72, so I've cancelled.

As said before after a month of arguing the toss and cancellation they offered me the same deal at £46.00 so i agreed. This was in June, since then they have only been charging and billing me £29.00 per month so I have said nothing.

When the contract is up I can argue that I only pay £29.00 so that’s all I want to pay moving forward.

[bolidemichael]

They’ve called me this morning, already! I couldn’t take the call.