Only joined Virgin Media for Sky? Blag some extra channels for the loss

A question about : Only joined Virgin Media for Sky? Blag some extra channels for the loss

6 March 2007
What's this all about?

If you're a Virgin Media customer (the renamed NTL/Telewest) you've lost your Sky channels. So call 'em up, complain and see what you can get!

The Details

Virgin Media announced from 1 March all Sky non-premium channels (Sky One, Sky Travel, Sky News and Sky Sports News) would no longer be provided in its digital TV packages. Premium services, such as Sky Movies and Sky Sports, haven't been affected. Let's ignore the thorny question of whether Sky or Virgin are to blame, it means you've lost some major channels.

What has Virgin said?

Virgin Media has publically stated it won't lower prices to compensate, rumours are flooding round that by complaining directly you could grab yourself six months of either up to 46 extra channels for free or half price tv service.

What to do

Simply, give Virgin Media a call. Either dial 150 via your Virgin Media landline or call 0800 0529403. Then explain that these channels were a signifcant reason you became a customer and you feel you're losing out. While it probably won't cut the price, ask for replacement channels.

Depending on the package you already have, it's possible you'll be offered a six months free upgrade to the L or XL package, or if you already subscribe to XL, it may offer it to you at half price for six months. There are no guarantees, but be polite and use a little chutzpah.

If it doesn't work, for other ways to slash the cost, read the article Digital TV Cost Cutting.

Martin

Please report your successes/failures by clicking reply

Best answers:

• You can have both Virgin and Sky!
  I was on the Virgin 3 for £35 deal - as a long term customer incredibly peed off with losing Sky One I had Sky installed Saturday and then rang BT to switch from Virgin to them and then spent 59 minutes on hold to speak to VM to cancel all my services.
  However, Virgin are quite desperate to keep customers and they offered me a much better deal rather than lose my custom altogether - £19.95 gives me broadband and telephone but with free daily, evening and weekend NATIONAL calls and a discount on International and mobile calls and they let me keep the TV for free and are installing it next week in my bedroom free of charge.
  So I am staying with VM and tv (M) phone and 2mb broadband and the free calls cost just £19.95 so even with my £15 a month Sky subscription I am quids in as I am saving approx £10 a month on calls (dont use the phone a lot) and I get more channels Sky One, Two and Three as well as the kiddie channels that are on the VM XL package which I could not afford.
  So ring 150 tell them you want to leave and renegotiate your deal - my sister, her best friend and my parents have all done the same!
  They dont want to lose you so give it a try!!!!!
  You can still have Sky as well - they want you to connect your box to a landline as the box occasionally calls Sky. But VM assure me you can connect it to your VM line and Sky wont know the difference unless Sky can find out from BT which is unlikely as its against the data protection act.
  If you dont connect your Sky box to a phone line within 8 weeks then Sky charge you a one off payment of £25 which is basically the installation fee that they waived but VM have said that if I do get charged this they will pay half of it!
• Im going to give this a try maybe tomorrow or the weekend. Will report back on how I got on. Annoyed at losing the channels.
• I am with Virgin/NTLI and have broadband,V+ box ,TV and phone with them so phoned up the other day and straight away i was given the XL tv package that I am on at half price for 6 months, that is £10.50 a month instead of £21. I already get other discounts so i didnt push anymore but well pleased.
• We only took up Virgin Media (Telewest at the time) in January and so are still tied to a 12 month contract.
  I am on 2 for Ј20. Broadband and TV package size L. I phoned up and queried the Sky thing stating that I wasn't happy. I now have TV Package size XL for 6 months at no extra cost.
• I only have the free TV, do you think I could do this aswell. I did honestly only get the TV as it had Lost on. I was quite happy with freeview before.
• Just phoned vigin media today and was told that they are considering taking Sky to the High court regarding the removal of there sky channels from VM. I was told that as a 'good will gesture' VM are willing to upgrade your tv package to the next one up, in my case from basic to L tv package, for 6 months free of charge. Excellent tip.
• Thats good of Virgin Media to give you half price on your packages. The channels that were taken off were free channels so you werent paying for them anyway so thats brilliant!!!
• Phoned them up. They instantly upgraded me to the L package at half price for 6 months. Remember to reduce your package back down after 6 months though, or you'll end up paying more than you were before!
• just on the blower now
  ok, now i was on £30 a month for the phone, broadband and basic TV package, but for £26 he has upgraded the TV package for more channels saving me £4, but as he was so nice I took him up on the £10pm VPlus box and £5.00 for the box to be in the back bedroom, so for an extra £9pm i have a Vplus box, second box and more channels for as long as i want.
  bargain!
• Have just range VM. I just explained that I wanted to unschedule our V+ installation as without Sky 1 there is no point us having it. The guy instantly cancelled the installation and offered us a 6 month upgrade for free to the next package. He said that we were on the base pack but he would upgrade us to the next one which will give us absolutely everything apart from the sports, movies, asian & porn etc.
  So, I didn't even have to ask for it.
  Sx
• well worth a call, free sky sports 1 month and upgraded to XL FOC for 6 months!
• Wow! What a result.... I have basic TV package so they offered me half price broadband instead which will save me some money! When ringing though, make sure you push # key to be put through to an operator (rather than * they suggest) as I ended up listing to a huge long message about VM V Sky!!!
• Gave them a call and got Ј6 off for the next six months.As I all ready have a good discount for my broadband came away quite pleased with that.
• 
  Quote:
• I contacted them today and got my bill down from Ј62 pm to Ј42, this is for xl tv, l broadband (4mb) and talk unlimited phone package. I just said I wanted to know what improvement they could make on my current bill.
  I am well pleased.
  Alex
• Yes, I've bucked the trend. Last Autumn I was looking to save costs and realised I'd be better off combining packages (NTL=broadband & telephone, Sky=tv) and called Sky, they reduced my package for 6 months by 50% to try and keep me.
  I'd been keeping an eye on the new potential deals once NTL became Virgin Media but am also really bored with the Murdoch media empire controlling what I can/can't see and the political opinion. Also whilst I'd been a big Lost fan was hacked off when it went to Sky One as the showtimes didn't fit in with me so I'd missed a few episodes (video not working and can't justify the extra expense for a DVD Rec or Sky/Virgin+) and that was all I watched on the Sky channels as I watch BBC News 24.
  However, whilst Virgin is fighting and negotiating on price and has been playing hardball with Sky I believe they are challenging the potential monopoly that Sky had in dominating how much we will all have to pay for cable/satellite services. I like what it is going on because in the long-term so long as Virgin/Branson keep negotiating hardball style it can only better us, the consumer with lower prices. It's not just the short-term loss.
  Congrats to the people who've negotiated better deals with Virgin as you could have longer term benefits in longer-term price wars.
  In summary, I had great pleasure on 'blackout' day in calling Sky to cancel my subscription and saying it was because I didn't want to support the Murdoch empire any longer and was switching my allegiance to branson. I then called Virgin and made one of the customer operatives very happy as he'd been having nightmare calls from irate customers all morning. Was I the only person to call up and take new services that day? And the key thing is I've saved myself Ј11.50 per month which I can now transfer to my credit card payments!