Watch out for brilliant Black Friday TV packages
And save a fortune… just in time for your Christmas television binge!
We’re all reeling from hikes in the cost of everything from milk to mortgages. For the record, milk prices soared 29.5% since 2016, while mortgages have gone up by 49% in just a year as interest rates spiked.
And unfortunately so has everything else in between.
But one price deal hasn’t increased much – and it’s quite a big one.
That’s the package offered to switchers for TV/broadband bills, which could cost us more than €1,200 a year – or less than half that amount, depending on how savvy we are.
Play your cards right and you could pay less now to watch favourite TV shows like Kin and Keeping Up With The Kardashians than in 2020.
Virgin and Sky – by far our two biggest providers – are offering TV/ broadband/landline packages for less than they were three and a half years ago.
Sky has a Black Friday ‘triple play’ deal for just €49, which also includes Netflix and a €50 voucher, depending on where you buy it.
Sky’s pricing goes up and down a lot but this is close to the cheapest I can recall seeing it (€45), especially when you include the freebies.
Virgin has also slashed its prices to €50 – down from the €60-a-month it charged in 2020, which is not far off its usual cost. However, if you want one of these deals you’d better grab them quick.
Sky’s deal is a Black Friday special. It doesn’t say when it ends but it’s for a limited period.
Virgin is likely to revert to its normal pricing strategy when Sky takes the pressure off.
And even Eir’s tasty-looking €44.98 a month deal is about to expire soon, the company says.
Vodafone, which stood out as the cheapest provider in 2020, with a ridiculously cheap €25 a month, has abandoned that strategy.
Now, on the face of it, it looks like the most expensive deal for newbies. But it’s not as ‘off the pace’ as it first seems.
Those nice offers from Sky and Virgin are great deals – as long as you switch again after a year is up.
But most people don’t. And then they get clobbered.
Both Sky and Virgin’s offers soar to over €100 a month after a year deal, which sends your TV/broadband bill into four figures. The sad truth is that most people convince themselves that they will switch when the year is up – but 85% don’t bother or are too busy.
So they end up paying more than €1,200 a year.
Vodafone’s €65 a month doesn’t double after a year, if you don’t switch.
But it does go up by inflation +3%, which would add about €6 a month to the price at current rates, which is still far less painful than a nonswitcher would pay with the other providers.
Eir does the same thing in charging 3% +inflation extra, which is a bit annoying as its bill also doubles for non-switchers.
But you can avoid all of that nonsense quite easily – by switching!
Stretched-out deals
If you find switching a pain – or you simply forget to do it – Virgin has launched two-year contracts that could save you money and hassle.
You pay a fiver a month more, or €120 over two years, for a 24-month deal. ‘Savings with most providers
only last a year, meaning you have to switch regularly in order to get the best deals,’ says Daragh Cassidy of Bonkers.ie, a comparison website.
‘However, in a first for the company, Virgin Media is now offering a 24-month discount across a range of its broadband and TV plans meaning the savings last much longer!’
Depending on location, for around €3 to €5 extra a month you can add a home phone package to most of these deals.