February 14, 2012
VIP 50 price rise
I was paying £103 a month for TV XL, Sky Sports & Movies HD, a 1Tb Tivo, a V+, whatever the phone thing is and 50mb broadband. Just been informed by email that will increase by over 4% (£4.25) to £107.25. Hmmm. Okay, so my broadband will double to 100mb in a few months, but what if I didn't want that and would rather have a discount?
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26 comments:
reduced my package, and went back to sky for my tv...
50 meg going up to 120 meg so thats not to bad
Aren't the broadband upgrades FREE though? I'm also sure I've read Sky are freezing prices for 12 months so it can't be why prices are going up. What exactly is this price increase for?
Sky froze prices for its customers last autumn but that doesn't mean wholesale prices (ie what Virgin pays) were frozen for the Sky channels.
Forgot to mention Spotify in my service: I have it free for a year, which is proving to be an outstanding service now that the iPhone App has stabilised. I wonder why VM still aren't shouting about it??
I called them up to get the breakdown.
XLTV +2
XLBB +2.25
I must admit that the underhanded way that Virgin have introduced this "Free" speed upgrade leaves alot to be desired. Send out the emails several months in advance and then announce price increase the following month.
Also saying, "see the website for details" but then not actually putting any of the details online. Last year the bill "simplification" that removes the itemised billing so that you cannot see what you are paying for.
I know Virgin employees read this blog - your customers are not stupid and can see what is going on here!
I am with you Nialli - I would have rather got a discount with the option of paying a small extra for more speed if I need it. 50MB is more than sufficient for my needs.
I went back to 30mb broadband as I never achieved any where near the up to 50Mb speed with my package. 30mb is more than enough, and I actually get 30mb consistently.
I think I may just get rid of the TV stuff from Virgin all together and rely on streaming services instead. I rarely watch anything other than BBC HD, so it's total overkill for me.
The Xbox is shaping up to be a nice little box for that type of thing, and will be getting iPlayer soon.
Most companies have annual price rises that are inline with inflation (4-5% currently). Sky raised prices just before 'freezing' them for 12 months, they have already said they will likely go up again in September. Don't be fooled by their marketing either. If you are on 10Mb broadband you can now upgrade yourself to 60Mb (after speed doubling from 30) for £4 p/mo only. That's a good deal and Virgin is much cheaper here than BT Infinity despite offering a superior product.
Helps a little that 50 meg is going to 120meg for "free" and sets the expectation that loyal VIP customers will get the top speed.
These increases are out of order IMO. The increase in my package came to over 6%. Outrageous anyway, but coming days after notice of my impending "free" broadband speed increase, shocking.
A call to retentions got me an, admittedly modest, £2 reduction for two years, which at least made the increase less egregious.
Not sure on the effects if you have vip but you can reduce your broadband to the next speed down, save money and thanks to the speed increases have a faster service than you currently have.
All I'd suggest is pop over to Sky site and see what your vm package would cost you. Then factor in the loss of fibre optic broadband and tivo and decide if it's worth it.
I kind of pre-empted all of this.
I got rid of TVXL, TIVO and switched to Phone L and am saving close to £35 a month. Then Virgin increase prices by £2.90 in just over 6 weeks time, i can reduce my broadband to what will be 60 down from what will be 100 - for effectively £4 less than I am paying now.
So I see it as a price cut rather than increase :-)
I agree though, it is disingenuous that they call these upgrades 'free' when patently they are paying for them with increased prices!
Hi guys,
Where are you getting the increases from? I've not ha an email or letter about it yet.
My monthly charge is going up by £4.25 from the 1st of April 2012, but my FREE broadband speed upgrade isn't arriving in my area until March 2013.
I feel slightly conned.
@ bentoms - Don't worry, you will get a letter sooner rather than later. But if you want to you can just call VM and they will confirm the sordid details.
Seems to be a lot of anger about this. But if you think about it when was the last time VM but the costs of your services up? I've been with them over 5 years and I can't recollect them doing it? But then my memory has never been the best!
Now, when did your gas/electric/water/council tax bills go up? Even my mobile bill has been increased this year!
As somebody else said further up Sky increased there prices before the "pay freeze" and have said that prices will likely rise again in September. So it's not as if VM are the only people doing this.
I do however understand the anger at telling us were getting free upgrades and then increasing our bills. VM should have informed us of the price rise, then a week later told us about the "free" broadband upgrade.
I think the problem is that people expect prices to go DOWN when there is competition - not up.
It's not like they are mining rare elements or drilling for increasingly scarce resources like Oil or Coal - the only reason prices increase this much is to fund programming and expansion plans.
The wholesale costs are Sky's to control, and almost certainly to fund their own price freeze they have whacked up wholesale so Virgin customers are paying for Sky customers to not have a price increase….
Given the dearth of quality programming (save for a handful of shows that I can Rent/buy on DVD or Blu-Ray) I see little point in me paying this overpriced tariff.
I have voted with my wallet.
As for broadband, although they are selling it as a speed doubling, it's actually a price cut - if you keep the same speed you used to have.
I mean, 10meg customers get 30megs for free, 30 meg customers get 60 mess for free and so on - so you can drop down a their and reap the benefits of having the SAME speed (or slightly higher!) and paying LESS.
I can't see the point in me having 100mb - but 60 is perfectly comfortable and i might even contemplate going to 30mb and saving a real packet!
@Neil - VM increase their prices every April religiously, and sometimes mid year too when Sky increase costs.
@sibod - I understand what you are saying, but for customers that are on VIP packages these increases are unavoidable as moving down in BB speed would break up the VIP bundle.
This price rise has made me reduce my package from XL TV (which you had to have to get TiVo) to M+ TV which has saved me (and lost VM) £16 a month. I think I won this round :-p
Also, did anyone else get the Spotify access? Notice that this renewed your contract for 12 months. How come you can't leave VM for 12 months while they can put their prices up? Bit of a one sided contract that!
We're making the switch tomorrow. Moving to Sky.
50meg is not going to 120meg
50meg is going 100meg and
100meg is going to 120meg
50Mb is ultimately going to 120Mb according to the marketing.
50Mb will go to 100Mb first and then jump again to 120Mb.
I have no idea why or what for, just passing on what VM are saying.
@ White - sorry but you are wrong.
100 meg customers are going to 120 meg and will see their price come down (I suspect by £7.75)
50 meg customers are going first to 100 meg with a price increase of £2.25, and then to 120 meg for free when available.
I have received a letter from virgin detailing this a week or so before the price increase letter.
Oh here we go again, just like Saturday in the High Street.
REDUCE YOUR GAS & ELECTRICITY etc
Next week they go up.
Why am I not unhappy? I actually believe in market forces. At present I have TIVO 1Tb XL etc. 30 Megs BB and Free calls 24/7 on phone.
I save a fortune using the latter two working from home. I pay £57 for another three months when my BB goes up by £4 per month plus the extra £2.40 update... but will have 60M BB as well thrown in.
The 24/7 phone saves me around £28 per month on calls etc.
So am I moaning? NO! £2.40 extra to VM ensures I get a better service, they stay in business, why are some people MOANING? Answer, because they CAN & MUST! LOL
PLUS...I had an outtage on phone this week caused by a slap dash engineer doing so testing at the local box.
VM were charm itself, they said the engineer that solved the fault. optimised my Tivo Signal to Noise ratio by 10DB,He checked the BB was steady at 31megs - PLUS he programmed my Panasonic TV to switch on immediately rather than having to select HDMI. and.... I got a £30 credit to my account.
£30 Divided by 12 = £2.50
I'm now 10p better off from April with a fully stable three services.
BARGAIN
I'm on the exact same package, and I was serious about returning to sky. So I phoned disconnections and told them exactly what was on my mind(good and bad). I told them that tivo was good, broadband was great, but your tv is not as good as sky, and sky was cheaper.
I ended the call with,
A second tivo box, plus free installation for £99 a month.
Try it out. End of the day you can easily go else where, and they know this
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