[MrB]

I am on a Mates Rates deal which was a good deal when I signed up - is there any chance of renegotiating with retentions on Mates Rates or do I just have to accept any price rises (or leave)?

I understood that you cannot change anything in the package without losing Mates Rates, but see that Mates Rates itself has changed a number of times so what people refer to as Mates Rates may be different depending on when they signed up?

Current package is what was XL TV/XLBB (now 100MB)/XLPhone, 2x Tivo and 1xV+ with Superhub 2, Line Rental £144 paid in advance, plus currently paying £40 a month on top (so about £52 per month before the rises) - when we signed up it was £36.

This is the third £4+ rise in less than 2 years (this time £4.75). It is annoying that you are not even sure what in your package is going up - I pay in advance for Line Rental so does the £4.75 include line rental (if I were paying normally) or exclude Line Rental (so will be another £20+ rise if/when I renew that too)?

I appreciate that this is still a reasonable deal compared to some, but there is no point just accepting the rise if there is any way to get the price reduced again - happy to drop the Talk International 2 and Talk Mobile 2 as we don't even use them and could probably do without the Talk XL too if the price came down enough to warrant it (as plenty of calls on mobiles anyway and rarely use the landline).

Sky have recently been in touch offering 50% off for the year which is an option but generally happy with VM apart from their price rises so better/less hassle to stay if possible.

Many thanks