Top 10 service companies to haggle with

[MSE Becca]

This is the place to discuss successful haggling and tips to help you negotiate a better deal, as seen in the guide:

Top 10 service companies to haggle with

This guide is full of handy hints and tips to help you successfully haggle a discount on your monthly mobile, TV, home phone, broadband and breakdown contracts.

If you've been successful at haggling, please join in the discussion


Many thanks,
MSE Becca

[ultramagnetic_commuter]

It would be much more informative if you separated existing customers haggling for their existing services with those looking for new services when reporting the discounts people can get. If you read the thread where people discuss SKY deals, it's obvious that SKY do not give out discounts like they used to;they are openly telling customers that (they told me) and are letting them leave. They do offer discounts but not the customer retention deals they used to where you ring up and they give you a discount without any fuss.

Offering *new* products such as the "I've phoned Sky last week, they offered me �1/month line rental for the first 12 months. I was paying BT �13/mth, so the saving was astronomical!" in your article is something completely different. That's being sold a new product on an introductory deal - I wouldn't even consider that as haggling as there are huge introductory discounts when existing customers are taking additional services openly advertised anyway.

[Dunkydave]

I have just 'haggled' �10.50 off my monthly line rental charges with Sky by getting through to 'cancellations' and quoting how much cheaper BT was for an equivalent package and saying I was thinking of moving everything to BT. (Which I was!) It is for 9 months, so I'll have to go back and rehaggle in January!

[LarryEeles]

Just called Virgin after Martins latest email.

Was on:

50mb Broadband, XL TV, and XL Telephone - Costing �90

Changed it to:
100mb Broadband, M+ TV (Didn't watch all the channels and only wanted the HD channels), and XL Telephone (Now with International calls bared) - Now costing �63

�27 saved a month, �324 a year!

Thanks Martin!

[kwikbreaks]

The best way to barter with VM is to call 150 on their phone or use the 0845 contact number on the website and select thr "thinking of leaving" option. This takes you to UK retentions who have access to better discount options than standard customer support. There's no need to threaten leaving - just ask what deals they can offer.

It pays to keep an eye on new customer prices after the initial discount period and make sure that you are not paying more - ideally less.

VM telephony is pretty expensive. Taking BB only will only result in a few pounds overall reduction in price because they bribe you to take their phone hoping you'll use it. By dropping the phone and moving to Vonage VOIP I get 24x7 geographic calls almost for free as the few pounds discount + not paying VM's callerid charge almost covers the Vonage monthly cost. You do need to be aware that VOIP won't work if there is a power cut.