Virgin Media - Retention Deals?

[HiAsAKite]

maz8062 said:

I’m on Virgin and pay £28 per month for 100mb, eve/wknd calls and no TV. We’re apparently in the top 50% of users averaging 450gb per month.

I’m not convinced of the different speeds TBH. I’ve had 250mb in the past but can’t tell the difference with our current 100mb.

We use Orbi + satellite mesh thingy to cover our 4 bed house and never have problems.

I’ll be threatening them again with this new price hike and expect to swerve it somehow.

Ditto.. had defaulted to £45/pcm, they were going to increment it by £3.50, and one phone call back to £28pcm for 100mbps broadband.

[cs174]

I'm on the M200 broadband package which just increased from £44.50 per month to £54.50 per month. One phone call later and it's now £31.50 per month. Certainly worth the phone call

[condor]

I've not received an increase email yet, but did get a satisfaction survey a few days ago. I'm hoping to move house in the next 6 months so don't want to commit to a 12 or 18 month contract. Presumably all those getting reduced prices are having to sign up to a lengthy contract period?

[cs174]

18 month contract but theres only a small fee (£25?) to get out of it early

[GreengiantPH]

Renewed mine this week, £69 for 18 months. Went from 200Mbps to 1Gig, they sent a Hub 4 to replace the Hub 3, very simple to set up and was up and running again in 15 mins, it auto activated.
Big difference is the Virgin TV go App plays saved shows with no buffering at all. Got much better upload which is very useful for me in the day job. We have had the 360 box since they rolled out the trial ones and that has settled down.
So far very pleased, fingers crossed it stays that way.

[rfn]

GreengiantPH said:

Renewed mine this week, £69 for 18 months. Went from 200Mbps to 1Gig, they sent a Hub 4 to replace the Hub 3, very simple to set up and was up and running again in 15 mins, it auto activated.
Big difference is the Virgin TV go App plays saved shows with no buffering at all. Got much better upload which is very useful for me in the day job. We have had the 360 box since they rolled out the trial ones and that has settled down.
So far very pleased, fingers crossed it stays that way.

Impressive. How much threatening to cancel did you do for that?

[GreengiantPH]

Very little, just used the online sales chat to upgrade from 200 to 1Gig, said I did not want big TV package or any extra phone features.
Effectively the upgrade has cost £5 a month extra from what we were paying, so was quite happy with that. I was surprised at the price, was expecting it to be much higher.

[anonymous-user]

My BB only contract is up
Was paying £32 a month for 200mbps
I called to see what they could do, there was an automated option to knock £4 off the bill to start the 18 months again, which I did. £28 a month now.
Could have VM landline for free, but not had one for a few years. Don’t want one !
My Openreach line is rubbish here, no viable alternative

[bigtomski]

I'd love to change my deal but i'm always on hold! Today was the 3rd day trying and it was 45 minutes before the awful music was too much and I hung up.

[dontfollowme]

I just got straight through on the 0800 number. Slightly underwhelmed by the offer - £27/month for the M100 package - phone and broadband.

Only up £2 so I'll probably end up taking it.

[98elise]

GreengiantPH said:

Renewed mine this week, £69 for 18 months. Went from 200Mbps to 1Gig, they sent a Hub 4 to replace the Hub 3, very simple to set up and was up and running again in 15 mins, it auto activated.
Big difference is the Virgin TV go App plays saved shows with no buffering at all. Got much better upload which is very useful for me in the day job. We have had the 360 box since they rolled out the trial ones and that has settled down.
So far very pleased, fingers crossed it stays that way.

What are people doing that needs 200Mbps, let alone 1G?

We 5 adults in the house have SkyQ, 5 Smart TVs, Netflix/Prime/Disney etc and we have a 60Mbps service (currently measuring 20 Mbps) We don't get any buffering.

[Chris Type R]

98elise said:

What are people doing that needs 200Mbps, let alone 1G?

We 5 adults in the house have SkyQ, 5 Smart TVs, Netflix/Prime/Disney etc and we have a 60Mbps service (currently measuring 20 Mbps) We don't get any buffering.

Normally there's a correlation between bandwidth and reduced latency, which should feel more responsive.

VM I believe will follow a script of telling people they've used x amount over the year (sharp intake of breath) and should use the package with the greatest bandwidth - when generally it's not needed.

Personally I use my VM for business use - software deployments (i.e. upload speed) and proof-of-concept web server hosting (again upload speed) is much improved. Very much a different profile from normal domestic use.

EDIT: Thinking about it - when high bandwidth is beneficial in a domestic setting is when you have one or more gamers in the house - both for latency in multi-player gaming and for the large downloads which modern games seem to need.

Edited by Chris Type R on Sunday 17th January 12:39

[GreengiantPH]

98elise said:

What are people doing that needs 200Mbps, let alone 1G?

We 5 adults in the house have SkyQ, 5 Smart TVs, Netflix/Prime/Disney etc and we have a 60Mbps service (currently measuring 20 Mbps) We don't get any buffering.

In my case the day job involves downloading and uploading many GBs of graphics and video files. The increased upload speed is the greatest benefit and easily pays for itself is reduced waiting time.
For normal homeowner use probably over the top.

[aberdeeneuan]

I was out of contract so rang them 10 days ago. They got it down to a price I was happy with but wouldn't update my box to the V6 without having to pay for it, which I only wanted for BT Sport in UHD really. It nagged at me, so rang them back this morning as I was still in the cooling off period, got straight through to the call centre and they dropped it down again and sending me the box for free.

Could probably have pushed for more but got what I wanted at a price I was happy with, so if you do it and it nags, just ring them back. I should add - I got straight through this morning but last week it was easily 45 minutes on hold. Ring them early seems to be the trick.

[dmsims]

I am trying 0800 952 2277 and it hangs up?

[dmsims]

Chris Type R said:

Normally there's a correlation between bandwidth and reduced latency, which should feel more responsive.

Nope they are not related (are you an ex boss of mine ?)

What can happen is that the upstream (which is normally a fraction of the downstream) becomes saturated this then slows everything down - gaming, video etc

[bungle]

dmsims said:

I am trying 0800 952 2277 and it hangs up?

Tried it earlier, gave up after a while due to waiting so long.

Separately, absolutely sick of the sales calls from 0800 052 1251, how do I make them stop?! They've called me every day for a week. To get rid of them, I answered one a couple of weeks ago, said I wasn't interested, and the calls stopped for about a week. Now phoning every day. Answered it today, said I wasn't interested and not to phone again. Not sure it will make any difference.

[Seventyseven7]

I’m in £32 a month for 200Mb deal, which ends in March.

Called them up today to say I can’t pay their £3.50 price increase plus my deal ended. First chap offered 2 discounts on the full £55 price or whatever it is once my deal ends.

Finally got through to the last boss, they gave me £33, so £1 increase for 18 months, which will do.

Be careful, the instant discount they offer you on automated message at the start of the call, does not discount their £3.50 increase from March.

[cs174]

dmsims said:

I am trying 0800 952 2277 and it hangs up?

Try 0345 454 1111

[dmsims]

dmsims said:

I am trying 0800 952 2277 and it hangs up?

Seems to work now

And just spent a very pleasant 2 minutes to get 200Mb for £33.50 (there is no FTTC here)