Has anyone renegotiated their cable bill lately?

[dreiwhit]

FWIW, when we cut the cord last February, the Dish Network sales agents offered us discounts. But, they were discounts like $10 off for six months. The offers were pretty much worthless on a $109.95 a month bill.

And, after 10 months, we haven't missed it at all!

 

[HopperFan]

Yes. AT&T.
Our bill jumped up to $250 for Cable, Internet & Phone.
Did our homework on what new customers at AT&T and Comcast were being offered.
Called AT&T, they offered some teeny discount ....

So we told them Comcast was offering us a better deal so we needed to schedule a disconnect. We were immediately routed to another department who worked up a "special offer" and we are paying $134 for the same exact service we had plus HBO. It is for one year. At that point we will re-evaluate. We have 6 months left so we'll see what happens with this neutrality thing, if the fiber being installed in our area will change the market or if we want to just cut the cord and live with just internet.

 

[b2k1121]

I am stuck in an area where Time Warner/Spectrum is the only option. AT&T has a few pockets but not in our neighborhood and we a dish install is not possible. I've noticed Time Warner has become less likely to try to retain when we call. Tried a couple times and only option they gave was to downgrade the package we had to make it cheaper. That's even after getting to the second level of retention. So we went ahead and cancelled then signed up immediately online as a new customer with self install. Dropped off the equipment and picked up the new equipment at the same time and will save about $50/month plus upgraded internet speed.

 

[ThisIsJason]

My wife and I were paying $132 for DirecTV and $65 for internet with Spectrum for a total of $197 a month ($2364 a year). DirecTV wouldn't give us a deal so we walked.

Went with Spectrum for TV as well and dropped the total bill to $122 price locked for two years. Plus a $15 TiVo fee, because the Spectrum boxes here are trash.

 

[Candlelady]

Anyone with Cox Cable? They will not budge for me except for $5.

 

[TwoMisfits]

Anyone with Cox Cable? They will not budge for me except for $5.

Are you in an area with another cable possibility? They wouldn't budge for me last year, so I had my husband call to cancel (after I had done a Verizon package search on my computer)...suddenly, we had a very good rate, better than I even would have asked for...

I'm irritated with them now over a different issue, so I may cancel with them for real this spring after my rate lock ends and then be in the "new customer" pile a few years from now...

But I think now, you have to seriously look at options and be ready to leave to get any kinda deal from them...

 

[Doug5984]

Called DirectTV a couple weeks ago, told them I was going to cancel and was able to get $80 off for 12 months, and another $5 off for 6 months. Saved $1,000 - but we will most likely cut the cord if at the end of that time if they don't give us another comparable deal.

Everyone with DTV should call and 'cancel' every 2 years or so.

 

[BaymaxForever]

We called and canceled our Comcast (185/mo) last month and were just going with an internet plan with them of around $60 a month. The only thing ‘we’ watch is the Disney channel so we were good with this (maybe not our DS9, though!). The best they offered at that time was ~140 before taxes, etc for a price break.

We went to take our equipment into their local store. While the guy was retuning it he asked, what do you want to pay? My husband told him $100 and the guy worked out a package that came to $102 with taxes! This is for digital economy plus internet and router. No DVR.

So we started getting used to missing certain channels. But we found that on our extra (smaller) box we got the next package level up (digital starter). So we moved that box to the living room. Then, a week later, we got the next package level up on the ‘main’ box and moved it back to the living room. My husband called Comcast and they verified we were still in the economy pkg and that is what we’re being charged for. Weird. Maybe they can’t seprate it out correctly for the timebeing. But, for now my DH gets ESPN, son gets Nickelodeon and I get the travel channel!

I do think it took us going to the step of actually retuning the equipment.

 

[Candlelady]

Are you in an area with another cable possibility? They wouldn't budge for me last year, so I had my husband call to cancel (after I had done a Verizon package search on my computer)...suddenly, we had a very good rate, better than I even would have asked for...

I'm irritated with them now over a different issue, so I may cancel with them for real this spring after my rate lock ends and then be in the "new customer" pile a few years from now...

But I think now, you have to seriously look at options and be ready to leave to get any kinda deal from them...

Yes, but it sucks. Frontier has been in the area for a couple of years. Haven't heard any good things about them. Daughter switched and hated Frontier. Internet was spotty and slower than Cox. She works from home so needs dependable and speedy internet.
I guess I have to get used to the idea of cutting cable all together because I am just not willing to pay any more for tons of stations I don't watch or want.

 

[tarheel618]

We are going to cancel Direct TV and try out SET tv. Our friends have been using it for several months and have nothing but good things to say.

 

[kkmcan]

Dh called and got comcast to take $50 off per month. We have the triple play phone, cable and internet. We were paying $225 and now we are down to $175. Its not huge but its something.

 

[jen7233]

My DH did ours. I could care less if we had cable or satellite really, as I mainly just watch Netflix or Amazon videos so the internet is my only thing I feel we need. But, he likes to have satellite or cable mainly for sports and some shows. He recently renegotiated our Direct TV to $83 a month. We had a $77 bill, then it went up after 12 months to $129 when the discount ran out. We do live in a rather remote area though, so we wouldn't get any local channels most likely without satellite.

 

[StephMK]

We have Centurylink and the other choices are Directv or Cox. Maybe Dish but not sure and we won't do either satellite company due to reception issues.

We're up to $200/mo for basic home phone, internet, and mid range cable. Crazy and I need to shop it.
Anyone have a good solution for live sports? That is really the only thing keeping us from going to straight Prime and Netflix.

 

[marmalade]

We are going to cancel Direct TV and try out SET tv. Our friends have been using it for several months and have nothing but good things to say.

We've had Set TV since October and absolutely LOVE it!! We have turned so many people on to it and they all love it too.

 

[arlinar]

We have Centurylink and the other choices are Directv or Cox. Maybe Dish but not sure and we won't do either satellite company due to reception issues.

We're up to $200/mo for basic home phone, internet, and mid range cable. Crazy and I need to shop it.
Anyone have a good solution for live sports? That is really the only thing keeping us from going to straight Prime and Netflix.

I had Centurylink so I know how you feel with that bill. Sling has a great variety of sport channels for $20 and you can add a sports package for even more sports channels for I think an extra $5-$10

 

[scard192]

Comcast raised my package by $35/month.Called over the weekend, 30 minutes on the phone and they lowered the price by $33/month so about what I had been paying. I have the advantage that my condo is wired for RCN and Verizon. paying about $159/month for phone, cable, internet, 1 DVR and 2 boxes for the TVs in the bedrooms.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

I just watched the SetTV video (about a 6 minute video). It seems really nice. But you can't get locals, and we watch locals for local news. I do like you can watch ESPN, MLB, etc. But no ABC, CBS, where a lot of weekend games are broadcast.

Right now, we have Suddenlink. We dropped our cable package nearly 2 years ago and haven't missed it as we have Hulu and MLB.tv. But our internet is almost $70/month. So I'm going to head up to Suddenlink soon and see if we can get some sort of lower tiered package to try and cut costs down even more.

 

[Kaytie]

I do like you can watch ESPN, MLB, etc. But no ABC, CBS, where a lot of weekend games are broadcast.

See if Suddenlink offers just a basic (VHF/UHF) lineup. Comcast does, the price varies by city. It's probably $15-$25 monthly.

 

[GlamMistress]

Just received an email from direct tv that due to rising costs there will be a
"small increase" in bill starting in January. I'm getting tired of all the increases also.

I would cut entirely but i wonder what to do about live tv. I like to have Cnn and
other channels come in crystal clear. I like direct tv and rarely have any problems but
seems like i call every few months wanting them to lower the bills. Have too many
"nothing" channels just to get the few i want.

I'm in the process of switching away from cable. I subbed to DirectTVNow - the bulk of what I watch is CNN and MSNBC and those channels are on the $35 tier. There are higher price tiers, too.

I gave up trying to get my spectrum bill down. They won't budge.

 

[Twilghtsprkle]

I just called Frontier. My annual painful call -30 minutes on hold & 25 minutes with the agent. Paying 91 + taxes for cable and internet. $4 more than last year but they threw in HBO. I told them I was ready to just go internet & cancel cable.