Renewing contract

My £16 all in contact for Sky landline and internet expires soon and the cost is going to rise to £26 per month....has anyone in a similar position managed to negotiate a reduction? Service is fine and as usual I don't want to go through the rigmarole of changing ISP. Thanks!

Sky always seem to be up for a discount though you may have to ring a few times. I think their retention team have quotas so you just need to get the right guy at the right time.
Currently I get landline and adsl plus anytime calls and the basic tv package with documentaries and kids bolted on for £32 per month.

Line rental is changing soon however. Off the top of my head it will include calls to mobiles but cost about £3 per month more.

See the increases here:

Sky Price Increases

Thanks for the link skilty..not looking too good really, although the Post office deal at the bottom of the linked discussion is quite cheap, but is it cheerful?

The problem is that there is not much money to be made in voice these days. I tend to use my mobile as my main line so GEA really does appeal to me when BT finally get the green light to do it.

Currently on Sky Fibre Pro Unlimited and got a stonking deal but have started to get itchy feet as we always seem to get slow down around 8pm.

I know it isn't the router as it is an Asus RT-AC87U so it has plenty of oomph.

Have a SamKnows box and it does show that we drop from 65mb down to 47mb at that time most nights.

I was thinking about heading back to BT for Line, Phone, Fibre and TV!

You could combine the Post Office line rental with someone like Zen or PlusNet but they do charge you for the privilege. Also remember BT, Zen and Sky only lock you in for 12 months, PlusNet is 18 months...

Very comprehensive advice, cheers. Useful background to negotiations.
I'll see what I get out of the renewals guys at Sky and report back..

...and one needs to watch these free for 12 month contracts which tie you in for 18 months-doesn't always work out cheap eh?

My last one was in April 2015 and I always get a deal or leave.

I get 40/10 fibre unlimited for £7 a month plus LR (12 Months Contract)

The previous year I got the same for £10 a month plus LR (12 Months Contract)

I insist on a deal for broadband as I know they use LR as a subsidy.

I switched a friend from Sky unlimited ADSL to unlimited fibre 40/10 and she now pays £7 a month for 12 months and full price for 6 months plus LR.

You must always approach them with WHY you are prepared to leave and qoute the offer and company you are considering switching too.

I fear the new switching scheme, where you have no need to contact Sky may make all this more difficult in the future.

Another thing to consider is that Sky have just been flogged on BBC Watchdog for making it difficult to leave and constantly making retention offers which of course is how we get these deals in the first place.

Edited by Nervous (Fri 16-Oct-15 10:03:56)

In reply to a post by Nervous:

I fear the new switching scheme, where you have no need to contact Sky may make all this more difficult in the future.

You have had no need to contact Sky for years, migrations involving MPF have been gaining provider led for a long time now, the recent change only affects WLR3 to WLR3 migrations.

The easiest example is if you go with BT. You can get Line Rental, Infinity 2, Anytime UK calls, Entertainment Ultra HD including BT Sport and a 1TB YV box for £71 a month. Quote Sky that price and they will normally match it or beat it. If they can't ring back 10 minutes later

I quoted them £76 for my BT multi-screen offer back in April this year so Sky did everything for £63 a month on a 12 month contract including Sky Fibre Pro.

Having said that we seem to be suffering from exchange congestion as my bandwidth drops to 45mb in the evening with Sky at the moment

Toying with the idea with a switch to BT as they have some good offers and I have an option to cancel my contract due to the LR and call package price increases.

The evening slowdown is probably the early signs of congestion on the backhaul but the drop isn't serious enough for Sky to sort it out yet. Once it does become a problem Sky are usually fairly quick at increasing capacity.

At my exchange my speeds were dropping from 70 Mbps down to sub-1 Mbps speeds in the evening and at weekends. It was all sorted out within a month although it would have been done quicker if there wasn't a communication breakdown and the Alcatel engineers couldn't gain access to the exchange on their first visit.

It's funny as I was speaking to Zen yesterday who said they can only offer WBMC on my exchange but he rarely sees congestion.

Makes me wonder if it is worth jumping ship, it's the same price and I have a get out of jail card because of the LR and call package cost increase...

In reply to a post by fireants:

My £16 all in contact for Sky landline and internet expires soon and the cost is going to rise to £26 per month....has anyone in a similar position managed to negotiate a reduction? Service is fine and as usual I don't want to go through the rigmarole of changing ISP. Thanks!

Sorry for the late entry to this thread,

I tried to help a recently rested gentleman reconstruct his Sky account recently with very little success!

As Sky where at first keen to point out he had been a loyal TV, Phone and Broadband customer for 3+ years and hadn't had much from them during that time but standard services.

He has there Unlimited ADSL Broadband, Anytime Landline Calls, Standard TV and Line Rental...

He needed to cut his monthly costs of £54+ down due to his income shrinking overnight.

They said that they could cancel his TV service as he wasn't using the subscription channels, but that was it!

They told him he was facing a £4 price rise starting in December into January and that they wouldn't be willing to do any offers.

Even reeling off some offers from competition wasn't getting them to budge, with many years experience in this area it was very strange, but that was all...

So the gentlemen has now opted for service from an alternative provider who is going to give him a years free Broadband and half price calls package for 18 months and to mobiles too! (and they have already risen prices)

"Even reeling off some offers from competition wasn't getting them to budge, with many years experience in this area it was very strange, but that was all..."

Do you mean "years of experience" of negotiating for a reduced offer? No wonder telcos are having to increase their prices on a regular basis.

We all go shopping every week but do we haggle in Tesco, Sainsbury's, etc. These companies manage to keep prices low because we just take our wallets elsewhere if we're not happy.

LMAO.... theres haggling a few pound discount on an overprice phone package, or a bundle of TV, Broadband and Phone.... but then theres haggling a discount of £5-£10 for a broadband service without any calls package or extra content....

Also this is for a pensioner who's usage is barely costing the ISP anything, where as some on here negotiate a discount from an already value broadband supplier and then use that like it going out of fashion...

So before you "try" and blame me for the rising costs because I hate seeing pensioners subsidising the costs of others, think about what I said above regarding retiree...

PS. the account in question has in three years only had one offer/discount and that was a £3.75 discount on Broadband for the first 12 months....

So 3 years of full price line rental, anytime calls and TV and two years full cost broadband, why can't they have a few pounds of when the company is pushing another increase their way...

I'm sure you've had more discount in the past few years than they probably have in there Broadband and Telephone lives!

No! I've paid my flat rate £7.50 for BB for the last 3 years. Trying to save a couple of quid a month seems a bit pointless when the insurance companies (car/home) send out renewals at over £200 extra per year. So switching insurance companies every year is more important.

Good for you, but the £7.50 broadband wasn't the issue, the issue was the £8 phones and £17.40 line rental....

Anyway, your missing the point, If an already value provider can subsidise someone £5+ a month then why can't a provider "that isn't known as value" subsidise £2-£3 a month for someone who been loyal and paid full price for oh so many years.

I'm not sure how insurance prices are related in this instance, but you have a fair point.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Good for you, but the £7.50 broadband wasn't the issue, the issue was the £8 phones and £17.40 line rental....

Anyway, your missing the point, If an already value provider can subsidise someone £5+ a month then why can't a provider "that isn't known as value" subsidise £2-£3 a month for someone who been loyal and paid full price for oh so many years.

I'm not sure how insurance prices are related in this instance, but you have a fair point.

They are related because exactly the same business model is being used. More and more it is the customer who just pays on renewal without question that is being used to fund the discounts that the rest of us are demanding. In many cases automatic renewal of insurance using a credit card authorisation allows insurance companies to "think of a figure" until it becomes so absurd that the customer rebels or, more often, an astute son or daughter happens upon the ridiculous amount that is being paid.

In the telecoms/broadband/tv industry the customer has been duped by the "bundle" where a myriad of prices are increased at varying times and rates together with a locked in contract often with varying end points for individual bits of the bundle. The annual line "saver" is the classic marketing tool that has become little more than an invitation to pay a year up front for virtually no discount at all and no chance of getting out of it even if other price moves offer you that chance. (A classic move to benefit the consumer arranged by Ofcom that manages to be useless if you pay line rental up front)

It's not until the customer sits down and adds up all the bits of the contract when renewal time arrives that he suddenly shouts to anyone in ear shot "HOW much???"

The subsequent calls to try to get a discount seem to encounter another factor. The call centre plans which seem to allocate each member of staff a set of targets including how much they can discount in a certain period. Talk to one, you'll get a rubbish offer. Ring back you'll get a bit better. Ring at one minute to midnight when the moon is full the guy has a target to fill and you'll get the jackpot, everything for a fiver for ever! Do these folk see what has already been offered? Who knows

The final sanctioon is to move supplier. It's an absolute pain. They know that. They rely on the fact you can't really be bothered. But at the rate that the complete bundle price is rising for all of us I suggest more of us are having to bite the bullet

Ofcom, as usual, like Ofgem is no friend of the consumer.

In reply to a post by 961a:

The final sanctioon is to move supplier. It's an absolute pain. They know that.

I don't agree. I've switched a few times and I've always found it a painless process. At worst you just have to plug in the new router when the old connection drops, and reconnect wireless devices (if any) to the new router with the new SSID & wireless key.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

At worst you just have to plug in the new router when the old connection drops, and reconnect wireless devices (if any) to the new router with the new SSID & wireless key.

I prefer to

a) Use my own router when changing ISP
b) OR change the wireless details in the router to match my equipment (one place to change!)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

a) Use my own router when changing ISP
b) OR change the wireless details in the router to match my equipment (one place to change!)

All of which is childsplay for anyone in this forum. The "average user" would just use the equally pain-free method I described earlier. Switching is easy.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by 961a:

The final sanctioon is to move supplier. It's an absolute pain. They know that.

I don't agree. I've switched a few times and I've always found it a painless process. At worst you just have to plug in the new router when the old connection drops, and reconnect wireless devices (if any) to the new router with the new SSID & wireless key.

It's the e-mail bit that's the pain! I agree the mechanics are easy

In reply to a post by 961a:

It's the e-mail bit that's the pain! I agree the mechanics are easy

Good reason to use ISP independent email. Free or paid there are lots of options. (most are better than ISP email now that people like to use tablets, phones and computers all synchronised).

Agreed, ISP email is often neglected, such as in the case of TalkTalk and Plusnet where they have not even introduced SSL/TLS yet, or in the case of BT where their email systems are prone to rejecting legitimate emails or letting too much real spam in. Some ISPs use the large free email providers anyway, like Sky using Yahoo.

Better free or paid alternatives exist, there's no reason to lock oneself into ISP-email and make switching harder.

Edited by Oliver341 (Tue 20-Oct-15 12:55:46)

See posts below for clarification.

I agree it should be easy but as many have pointed out.

Still getting bills from losing provider, connection could be lost for a day and sometimes all doesn't go smoothly.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Agreed, ISP email is often neglected, such as in the case of TalkTalk and Plusnet where they have not even introduced SSL/TLS yet, or in the case of BT where their email systems are prone to rejecting legitimate emails or letting too much real spam in. Some ISPs use the large free email providers anyway, like Sky using Yahoo.

Better free or paid alternatives exist, there's no reason to lock oneself into ISP-email and make switching harder.

Again, you're right

It really is my own lazy fault for not doing it when I moved from Freenetname > Madasafish to BT, partly to get the offer that was going at the time, partly to get line rental/broadband and email all together in one cheap (it was for the first year) bundle. I must say the BT email works well for me and collects my Freenetname email as well. It costs £1.69 to keep the email and the web page going but like 100 other things, it's on my "to do" list as soon as I can get round to sorting out Nominet and finding a reliable web host that won't cost the earth and will, more importantly, stay in business

I registered a domain name about 15 years ago and a friend hosts my website and email. It's a cheap an effective way of keeping a constant email address... It should not cost a lot.

Just had the letter about the £4 increase for the phone, as the package im on wont exist from 1st December, so im swapping to the Pay As You Talk one, which is £0 a month, as i don't have a phone plugged in, the lines solely for my Fibre.

Well....I went to my Sky account and completed the online questions to say I was changing to Plusnet and Sky came up with an online offer of line rental of £17.40 (from 1 December) plus £2.50 a month for unlimited internet. This doesn't include any calls. This is a good price...
When I rang up to get full details the very helpful person at Sky gave me free internet for another year and a no calls package of £17.50 per month-even better.
This is great news, as the service is very good and now there's no need to go through the hassle of changing ISP