Virgin Media UK Increases Mid-Contract Price Hikes to £4 and Refreshes Bundles
Mixed news for customers of Virgin Media’s broadband and pay TV services today. The provider has decided to follow BT’s (inc. Plusnet and EE) recent move (here) by increasing their existing mid-contract pricing policy to adopt an annual rise of £4 (monthly) each April (up from £3.50). But Netflix is now included in more of their broadband and TV bundles.
Just for some context. At the start of 2025 Ofcom began requiring telecoms providers to adopt a new approach to mid-contract price hikes, which did away with the old percentage and inflation-based model – replacing it with one that must now set out such price rises “clearly and up-front, in pounds and pence, when a customer signs up” (here). This made annual price hikes clearer and more transparent, but not necessarily cheaper.
In response, many providers later followed BT’s lead by setting out a new pricing policy that would increase the monthly price that customers pay by a flat £3 extra from March or April each year (this can vary a bit between providers). But inflation has remained higher than originally anticipated and, partly as a result of that, BT recently announced that they would increase their annual hikes by an extra pound to £4.
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Since then the expectation was that other providers, at least those that adopt this sort of pricing policy (most of the largest players and a few others), would soon follow BT’s lead and today Virgin Media has become the next operator to do so. But in fairness to Virgin, they’ve confirmed that they’ll be going from a flat price increase of up to £3.50 – applied each April – to £4. This is a smaller 50p increase and one that aligns them with BT.
Virgin Media has historically attracted criticism for doing the most expensive mid-contract hikes, so this smaller increase is technically a positive change. Customers are of course unlikely to see it that way, as any annual price hike is still a price hike.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said:
“Customers taking one of our latest packages, which offer fantastic value including Netflix as standard on all TV bundles and Sky Sports in HD at no extra cost, will see their prices rise by £4 a month each April. No prices are changing now and no changes are being made to existing customer contracts.
This 13p a day rise represents excellent value for connectivity customers use more than ever and is greatly outweighed by the £5m we invest every single day into our networks and services to ensure we continue to provide the fast, reliable connectivity our customers expect and rely on.”
At this point some of our readers might be wondering what O2’s approach will be for mobile users, although they have tended to do smaller mid-contract hikes for mobile services (currently +£1.80 on airtime bills and 75p on mobile broadband in April each year). But VMO2 informed ISPreview that “there are no price increases for O2 customers to announce“, at least not today.
Some Positive Changes to Bundles
On the positive side of things, Virgin Media has also announced that they’re refreshing their bundles a bit. For example, the popular Netflix video streaming service is now included as standard (“Standard with Ads“) across their full TV bundle range and also with broadband-only packages of M500 and above “at no extra cost“.
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At the same time, they’vealso updated their TV packages, including names, in the hopes that customers will find picking the right package much easier (there are now five core TV packages). As part of this, and much as we first hinted over the weekend (here), Virgin Media has boosted the lowest broadband speed available with TV packages to M250 (previously it was 125Mbps).
The new bundles also provide a simplified home phone offering, as well as reduced prices on Talk plans for existing customers looking to re-contract. New customers can add Talk Anytime to their bundle for just £8 per month (previously £15), offering them unlimited calls any time of day to UK landlines and mobiles. Existing customers wanting to add home phone services to their package can also get Weekend Chatter for just £3 per month, saving them £2 per month on their home phone services compared to previous pricing.
Finally, all Sky premium channels now come in HD as standard, boosting the viewing experience for sports and movie fans. For example, Sky Sports is also now included in HD as standard (previously a £7 add-on), meaning customers can “enjoy an enhanced viewing experience at no extra cost“.
Christian Hindennach, Chief Commercial Officer at VMO2, said:
“As the world of entertainment evolves, we’re focused on not only shaping our offering to continue to meet our customers’ needs, but ensuring we bring together the very best in connectivity and programming so they can enjoy an experience that truly works for their household – all in one place. Netflix is one of the biggest streaming providers across the globe, and through our enhanced partnership, Virgin Media customers can enjoy even more value and access to the greatest shows, movies, documentaries and more as part of their bundle, and at no extra cost.”
Overall, today’s announcement looks to be a tale of two halves, with some positive changes for bundles being tempered by a price increase to the provider’s existing policy on mid-contract hikes.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Annual price hikes (if they should happen at all) should apply based on contract start date, not a fixed date in the calendar.
I agree
because essentially if you start a new contract in or around Jan-Mar – you’ll only see the cheap price once or twice before going up.
then if you do it in apr or may then you’ll see at least 11 months worth of the cheaper rate before the rise and then only a month or two of the 2nd rise.
which I always aim to do
Exactly, my contract renewal date is in November and I don’t want to go out of contract & play inflated prices for the next 5 months so I get screwed either way.
I was with Virgin but moved to a supplier that has no ridiculous and greedy annual price rise. The bundle is 4 times faster and still cheaper than what I was paying at greedy Virgin. I voted with my feet and walked away.
As of today, Broadband ONLY packages have gone up in my area from £30.99 to £38.99 for GIG1 with enforced Netflix with Ads added to it!
So if you are out of contract and GIG1 is circa £80 per month, they want to rise it by £4 every year? Where is the useless unelected quango Ofcom? It’s pure milking of customers, particularly in areas where BT FTTP or an ALTNET does not exist. These days, as many have found, trying to re-negotiate a contract renewal is fraught with issues like only a few £ off the out of contract price, and contracts being dearer than agreed. The VM user forums has been plagued for months and months with case after case of aggrieved customers trying to re-contract. A number just then left because of the cock-ups.
The year is 2030. Broadband prices are still ~£30 per month, but every April prices increase by £50 per month. Facebook is still full of posts saying “My broadband price went up, can I cancel?” with replies like “Yh hun, cancel the direct debit”. Ofcom say that the market is working in the interests of consumers.
I’m in an area where Nexfibre are building. As they will be the only full fibre service available when they go live, this price increase makes me less likely to want to get VMO2 and I’ll be happy to wait till GiffGaff or another provider is available on their backbone.
Greed and the inflation scam.
I left virgin media because they always have outages or signal dip but also seems to increase the prices after saying “we have the best”. Now I’m in an area without the fiber and use a phone port and have had smoother internet with Plusnet and in two years I’ve not had a dip in signal
I am in the process of switching from Virgin, they didn’t inform me my contract was coming to an end and they just doubled the price. I call this sharp practice and is only done by stupid companies. They think the customer won’t notice while they stiff them! They sent me an email asking me to reconsider. I also experienced outages and they always said it was fixed when it wasn’t just so they can avoid compensation. I will never use Virgin Media again. I suggest all customers check when their contracts end and move to another reputable company. I hope the board enjoy having a coffee on doubling my bill but it is the last penny they will get from me!
These deals seem straight out of 1995 when I would expect someone like cable and wireless to say the benefits of calling are free calls off peak. Except today I can pay Lebara less than £5 per month for unlimited calls anytime. As an ex customer, their broadband is good. I couldn’t knock it, I know plenty would but for me it was rock solid year in year out. I left because of the price increases and growing tired of making annual negotiation calls to customer services who became increasingly uninterested. I went for mobile broadband and although the speed and reliability wasn’t comparable at first, nowadays it’s really good and I’m happy to have switched. I can’t see the current owners of Virgin changing direction, the prices will continue to rise until there’s a tipping point of churn and they then sell the business off. I would say this is potentially possible in the next five years.
This is an identical situation to myself. Got sick of constant price increases and tiresome negotiation to get the price down.
Switched to an unlimited mobile SIM 4 years ago. No price increases in that time.
So my broadband is going from £25 to £29 which is a 16% increase per year 4x inflation. How the on earth is that legal!!!
I don’t think there should be any price rises if you are in contract, they get round this by telling you when you change package or renew your contract in our case Virgin last month we changed package on the contract it said from next April it will go up £3.50 so now it will be £4.00 ???? where are you Ofcom??
I strongly agree, prices should be set at the start of a contract and no price rises until the contract ends. Companies can then price in increases and consumers can decide if they wish to accept. Ofcom didn’t think this decision through, changing increases to a monetary amount instead of a percentage is perfectly fair. It’s just the way this has happened has been bad for the consumer and needs adjustment. They’ve never really had any teeth and been naive to market powers, I worked for BT at the time they proposed to remove the directory enquiry monopoly. They did so, a load of competition sprung up, but because of the market cap rules it was a free for all. Ofcom insisted a liberal market will be competitive, I remember prices quadrupled overnight and went on increasing. Some things never change.
If you renewed and it states £3.50 in your new contract that is what it will be.
These £4 increases will be for new contracts or those re-contracting, won’t affect existing contracts.
So the minimum speed available to normal paying people is now 250 meg, up from 125. I’m wondering if they’re going to raise the speed on their social packages as well?
If I want a decent speed my only choice is Virgin. Think I’ve been with them since 2018. I always set a reminder on my calendar, and it also says in the email every month when the promotions expire.
I was paying £43 for 1 Gig and was due to go up to an extortionate £70 next month, less than 10 minutes on the phone last night, got it for £37, with £3.50 increase next April and another £3.50 in April 2027, so looks like I just dodged the £4 increases.
New customer price is £36.99, so happy with deal I got without having to give 30 days notice.
I was on 560Mb and they never wanted to put me on gig1, so your deal was what they offered me again for 560Mb when they received the switch notification from Vodafone as I’m going to pay £33pm for 910Mb with £3 price increases. Yes I’ve been renegotiating but got sick of it, I want companies to just give me a good deal like new customers by default and at the end of ct just like insurance had now
I think we did better before with the old price increase system it was only like £2 something which is fair enough I guess but now £4 it’s absolutely disgusting if there implementing this £4 a year contracts should only be 12 months no more 18 or 24 months it’s unfair now the prices are increasing but the service is decreasing on all providers
Virgin better not increase mines, I’ve bin with them for god no’s how long I’ve now got another 2 yr contract ain’t heard from them yet tho
They will. If you re-contract you’ll be subject to £4 every year price increase. This figure may go up (again) in future too.
If you stay out of contract minimum term, you’ll lose discounts but you would likely keep the old formula which was probably the percentage one based around February’s inflation CPI rate plus 3.9% extra.
The fact you been with them means for years means nothing. Many long term customers left because they got a bad retentions deal, and the yearly price increases. VM have really tightened up contract renewals. You basically have to put in a termination request and hope they call you back or send an SMS, which may be a lower speed broadband package too. Many customers on their forums have detailed this. If you get an offer before actual termination, chances are it won’t be that discounted from hideous list price, or from what competitors are charging.
Are we supposed to be thankful that HD is now free?
It’s always been preposterous there was ever a charge for it
Outrageous in every regard
Didn’t renew my recently ending virgin contract been on cable for around 20 years, had enough of these price increases all the providers in my area do the same , I just ended up getting 5G unlimited data sim into router £15 no price rises 1 month rolling, getting 150-300mb which is more than fast enough for my use mainly streaming