@kennylam
The contract with VM is technically and legally to supply services to a particular address, so if you move and this is to an area which can get VM, the fact that it is a new address has to involve cancelling the old contract and account and setting up a new one. In principal then, you are supposed to have to pay off any early disconnection fees from the old contract (assuming that you are still within the minimum term), and also set up a new contract with a minimum term - usually 18 months.
So far so good - all (sort of) makes sense.
However VM have a policy whereby if you move to an area which they supply, then they let you start a new contract but on the same terms as the old one, ie if you were 12 months into an 18 month term, then the new contract would only have 6 months to run, any discounts, deals etc. should carry over.
Now this is where it all gets a bit messy, as far as I have been able to work out from other posting etc. VM's systems automatically start a new contract at the standard 18 month period, automatically cancel your old contract (and bill you for early disconnection fees), and to override this requires some sort of manual intervention from a manager, once done it all gets sorted out.
So why such a convoluted process? Well; who knows! A much more cynical person than I might think it is a deliberate ploy, hoping that you don't notice, just think it is normal and pay up!
In fact there may be circumstances where this is advantageous - as a 'new' user at a 'new' address with a 'new' contract, you would be entitled to the new user discounts and this could well be more than paying off an early cancellation fee - you'll have to do the maths yourself.
In any event, do you have any email accounts set up using any of the virginmedia branded addresses? If you do then they are tied to your old account and would need to be transferred to any new one (a so-called move and transfer arrangement), otherwise they are regarded as orphaned and could be deleted after a few months. It seems that not every VM customer services person even knows that this M&T process exists, let alone advise you of it and arrange for it to be done. So watch out for that one and request it be done if necessary.
John
