I'm on Sky Stream. My Sky Q deal was up for renewal back in February so I was going to lose the offers I had on the package. From what I recall it was due to go up by about £30 a month. They wouldn't budge on the renegotiation so I simply told them to f**k themselves and that I was leaving. A few days before my disconnect date they called me and offered Stream with no money to pay for the puck and for less money a month for the same package I'd been on previously. Like previously, the only thing I don't have is Sport which I'm not arsed about anyway as games I want to watch I source from elsewhere like using my brother's account on Sky Go. The good thing about Sky Stream is that you can pay a little extra and start on a rolling 30 day contract, so no 18 month bollocks. I could leave tomorrow if I wanted to. But I'm not even paying that additional fee as they wrote it off, presumably to avoid us leaving. I was half expecting them to call, but it helps that I was genuinely going to leave as companies like Sky won't always call to try and keep you these days. Overall, there are some things I miss in comparison to Sky Q. Stream is basically Sky Glass without that mediocre, stupidly overpriced television so everything is catch-up rather than local recordings. But there are advantages. The interface is better, there is no satellite dish, the puck is tiny (mine is stuck to the back of the TV so isn't visible), and it works surprisngly well when combined with the DNS deny lists I've set so channels like ITV X, More 4 and My 5 show no adverts. I've never been on Virgin. My parents say they're terrible and I've heard other horror stories about them through friends and family. Plus, I've never lived in an area they cover anyway. For my broadband I've got 1gb FTTP with City Fibre for £27 a month through Vodafone.
After my pathetic negotiating with Virgin I've had my car insurance renewal from Admiral, and they want £585. That's not happening, but it's another bleeding phone call to argue with people looking to rip me off.
Didn't get anywhere with Admiral, they got my renewal down to £497 so I've binned them and taken out a new policy with Budget for £454. These days I seem to change car and home insurance providers pretty much every year.
I find I flip flopped back and forth between Admiral and Direct Line every year when I had to insure a car myself before the Motability one but I'd always try to stay with the one I was with if they could get close to the best (Direct Line were always my preference though as they don't resell other organisations sh1tty policies)
Direct Line are just one of the Direct Line Group, alongside NIG, Churchill and a few others. Tesco Insurance used to be part of it as well - if they're not still there. I think most motor insurers all come under an umbrella of about 5 or 6 main insurers. Admiral has Bell and Elephant for example. Quote Me Happy is Aviva. And so on.
I've had a bad experience with Direct Line, and my sister had an even worse experience with them so I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole, though as @Si Robin points out sometimes you aren't sure who you're actually signed up with. The cheapest quote I got was from a company called Geoffrey, but I'd never heard of them so opted for one about £30 more expensive.
Promise you the rainbow did he? I've just had fibre optic installed and strangely my internet bill has gone down by $18 a month. I've questioned it to make sure I'm not going to get a surprise bill in a few months when someone realises their mistake but apparently it's a thing here.
