In reply to a post by JonDav:

What would be next on your list to stop "deals" on?

Maybe stop shops from offering lower prices than their competitors to attract customers?

Perhaps ban Amazon for undercutting others?

Stop those petrol stations that offer lower fuel prices from doing that?

Do you avail yourself to any "deals" on shopping or petrol? If you do, then you are "guilty" of being a cheapskate/miser by your own definition.

Needless to say, you missed the whole point.

"Retention deals" rely on some customers subsidising those on retention deals.
All the examples you quote are for everyone, and the vendor prices according to his volume and profit margin.
Their pricing is transparent - everyone pays the same for the same product/service.

Edited by deleted (Mon 29-Dec-14 14:08:19)

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

"Retention deals" rely on some customers subsidising those on retention deals.

Do you have any evidence for this?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Do you have any evidence for this?

Take Sky TV. It costs Sky just the same to transmit their channels to one customer as it does to transmit to 10M+ customers. In a fair, transparent, world Sky's costs would be equally shared across it's customer base., We all know it isn't.

I thought not. You appear to be suggesting that retention deals are only done if they are self-financing which doesn't make sense.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by fireants:

and who cares about non haggling customers?

Well, you should since they subsidise your broadband. If everyone haggled for yearly retention deals, the deals would very likely become a lot less generous.

Sky wouldn't offer retention deals if it wasn't more profitable overall than not offering them.

So far from non-haggling customers subsidising haggling ones, the deals make Sky more money and either keep things cheaper for everyone and/or make more profit for Sky.

In reply to a post by _Resonance_:

Sky wouldn't offer retention deals if it wasn't more profitable overall than not offering them.

Right a small, amount of profit (retention deal), is better than no profit (customer moves elsewhere). But the ISPs aren't willing to do something fair like automatically offer everyone the retention deal price, as it wouldn't make them enough profit, so they rely on some customers paying more than others for the same product at the same ISP.

Correct, but it still makes them more profit overall and so it isn't putting prices up for non-retention customers.

I've never understood why people don't haggle. Why would you pay more than you have to?

Do you think Sky themselves don't haggle/threaten to go elsewhere to get a good deal from their suppliers? Given that, are Sky (and every other company in the world) also in the wrong?

I haggle as much as possible. If it's possible to live a lifestyle that's over and above your income level by haggling then why wouldn't you?

Edited by _Resonance_ (Wed 31-Dec-14 15:52:32)

In reply to a post by _Resonance_:

I haggle as much as possible. If it's possible to live a lifestyle that's over and above your income level by haggling then why wouldn't you?

Because it's simply not in a lot of peoples' nature to haggle. Call them stupid if you like. Personally I would prefer everyone was charged the same fair price for any given product at any given ISP, but I know we don't live in that world.

I wouldn't call them stupid, lacking on confidence maybe?

Haggling has happened from the birth of civilisation. It's still common in a lot of areas, hardly anybody pays full price for a car, or a house for example.

Get haggling, get the best price and don't worry about a company with £billions of income would be my advice, because they certainly don't worry about any other company when they're doing exactly the same thing, or their staff when they're haggling with a union over pay rises.

In reply to a post by _Resonance_:

Correct, but it still makes them more profit overall and so it isn't putting prices up for non-retention customers.

Exactly.

In reply to a post by _Resonance_:

I've never understood why people don't haggle. Why would you pay more than you have to?

The way I look at it is that it is my business to look after my money and get the most I can from it for my family and myself. If others want to dig deeper into their pockets than I have to for the same things, then that is their business.

In reply to a post by _Resonance_:

I haggle as much as possible.

Same here. It is of no concern to me what profit X or Y is making if I haggle for a lower price than others might get by not haggling. I leave the decision to those I haggle with to decide if they want to take a lower price than they might charge other people.