The tale of retentions

[vincerooney]

Greetings all,

Am currently on the essential collection it involves

- talk unlimited
- free voicemail
- 2 additional V boxes
- Broadband L
-Tv Size XL
- Tivo monthly free
- sky sports 1 and 2

minus a loyalty discount of £11 and line rental of 14.99

This brings our package total to £96.74

Our phone bill is horrendous though with calls to mobiles and the dreaded premium calls my sister makes via direct enquiries etc. Unfortunately due to my sisters condition just telling her not to do this isn't as easy as it may seem.

I tried calling retentions to see if they could suggest anything after getting a sky advert through the letter box but they weren't particularly as rewarding as they have been in the past.

I was offered:

- stopping paper bills (my mum is 62 and prefers paper bills as she doesn't use a computer)
- Putting a block on calls which are outside my package at a cost of £2 per month (!) as its a special feature. Even still they said if I wanted one to cover any call outside my package we'd need to put a pin in everytime just to make a call.
- Putting my package up to the higher tier for a further £9 which would include mobile calls. Even though we'd save money try in the long run try explaining that to my mum who would literally just hear the "extra 9 quid a month..."

My main questions really are

1) does what i'm paying seem right?
2) Surely blocking calls could be given for free and surely it must be easier than putting a pin in every time? Has anyone had this before?
3) is it worthwhile calling retentions again later on or have I maxed out my loyalty...

[Mr Pharmacist]

I suppose it could depend on when you got your last loyalty offer from them. Personally I'd call them again. I called retentions 3 times at the end of last month, and got a better offer every time. They all seem to have different things to offer so its got to be worth another call or 2. Regarding your first question, I've seen such a variation in the offers that retentions give out that I wouldn't have a clue what's good or bad. Do you pay your line rental in advance to save £4.99 a month?

[vincerooney]

Originally Posted by Mr Pharmacist

I suppose it could depend on when you got your last loyalty offer from them. Personally I'd call them again. I called retentions 3 times at the end of last month, and got a better offer every time. They all seem to have different things to offer so its got to be worth another call or 2. Regarding your first question, I've seen such a variation in the offers that retentions give out that I wouldn't have a clue what's good or bad. Do you pay your line rental in advance to save £4.99 a month?

cheers for the reply nah we don't. again I don't think my mum would understand she would just see it as paying 100 quid to virgin media in a lump sum then our bill was already too high!

[Mr Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by vincerooney

cheers for the reply nah we don't. again I don't think my mum would understand she would just see it as paying 100 quid to virgin media in a lump sum then our bill was already too high!

Fair enough. It's still worth calling them again though, and I'm sure someone else will come along and give you more in-depth advice.

[anap]

With what you have would the VIP collection be better? You get 0845 and mobile calls included.