Mines due in August so I'll simply,
Ring them,
Cancel,
Sit back,
Take their call from retentions,
And barter out a deal like I'm at a Turkish market,
Then wait another 18month till the process starts again.
If they don't ring me back?,
The wife will open up an account in her sole name
I did exactly the same thing you listed out above in order to save some money but it sort of backfired lol.
My contract was up on the 6th July, so I rang them up on the 6th June to see what they can offer on my current deal, which was 2 boxes, 500mb broadband , landline and TV with movies and sports, all for
£87 pm. Come 6th July this was going to shoot up to £148pm, so I told them if they can't offer me a price around what I'm paying at the moment then I'm going to cancel.
Since they could not match my current offer I asked them the cost for only broadband & landline but ditch the TV, to which they said £55 pm.
This also appeared too high as they had the same offer on for new customers but for £36pm, so I told them to cancel if they can't match the price of new customers.
Disconnection notice went in, about a few days later virgin retention called me up and said best we can offer you is £44pm for broadband and landline. I told them i'd think about it and hung up expecting them to call me back a few days later, but I never received the second call.
So last week I started to panic as I did not have a plan b in place, so I tried contacting Virgin via the app, no response even though it kept saying someone would be with you shortly, this never happend. I finally managed to get through, and spoke to some chap who I could barely hear with a dogy headset, so I had to end the call.
4 days before the disconnection date, I told my wife to take out a contract in her name as a new customer for £36pm, the kit landed today which was the same date I got disconnected.
They are Vermin for a reason!