British Gas Price Promise June 2010

uncas

Hello all. First post so please be gentle.

I'm a British Gas dual fuel customer and have been on their Price Protection April 2009 tariff for the last three years. I, along with a great number of other customers I suspect, have just received a letter from British Gas telling me that I'm to be moved on to something called Price Promise June 2010 unless I opt out.

On the surface the deal they're offering doesn't seem too bad -- at least not as bad as being dropped onto their Standard tariff -- but the covering letter is couched in such blatant sales-speak ("tariff especailly for customers like you", "valued customer", "even better news", "great new fixed rate" etc.) that I can't help but wonder whether they're trying to pull a fast one.

In the past I've played with a couple of the more popular price comparison websites, namely USwitch and Confused, but the Price Protection 2009 tariff was unbeatable for its time. I'd like to look at switching options again before I'm locked into this new Price Promise tarff but neither of those sites have information about this new June 2010 variant, which makes direct comparisons difficult.

Can anyone suggest a comparison website or other tool into which I can plug actual pence-per-unit prices and get a rough idea of what I might end up paying compared to other providers? Because I fear if I wait for the big comparison sites to catch up with details of this new tariff it might be too late to get out.

For what it's worth the rates quoted on the paperwork are 7.116 and 3.366p/kWh for gas and 23.405 and 10.92p/kWh for electricity, VAT inclusive, for the ManWeb pricing area. How does this compare with similar fixed-price deals from other providers? Are there any websites that carry this information in an easy to cut-and-paste form, such that I could create a spreadsheet for comparison purposes? Of course I could always trawl each provider's site in turn looking for this data but I'd be peeved later on if I found out someone had already done it!

I don't have any particular beef with British Gas and would be happy to stay with them, but obviously if I can save a few quid I'd be happier still.

Any pointers appreciated.

1carminestocky

Just on a casual glance those rates don't look by any means amazing, TBH. I'll investigate further...

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

BG's cheapest advertised tariff is Websaver2. But that is not a fixed tariff.

If you go to BG's website you can see how it compares with the price promise June 2010 tariff(which is not on their website) However I am pretty sure that Websaver 2 is considerably cheaper - particularly for gas. It has a £30 exit fee per fuel.

If you go to a comparison website and enter in your annual kWh consumption you will get all the prices and the detail pricing of each tariff can be obtained. - including the fixed tariffs.

For most people EON appears about the cheapest.

McTigger

I am in the same boat and have had to compare my April 2009 Price Promise rates. I know things are going to be dearer now, but EON looks to be the best bet and it works out at around 6% dearer. Still checking tho.

Also, did the OP read the T&C in the letter that state "We will honour the Price Promise June 2010 rates unless we are prevented from doing so by the action or anticipated action of any government or statutory body"

Well isnt THAT reassuring!!!

Cardew

McTigger wrote: »

Also, did the OP read the T&C in the letter that state "We will honour the Price Promise June 2010 rates unless we are prevented from doing so by the action or anticipated action of any government or statutory body"

Well isnt THAT reassuring!!!

That is a fairly standard clause.

It means if the Government, say, increase VAT.

uncas

Cardew wrote: »

If you go to a comparison website and enter in your annual kWh consumption you will get all the prices and the detail pricing of each tariff can be obtained. - including the fixed tariffs.

For most people EON appears about the cheapest.

I've just tried that with Confused (USwitch doesn't seem to provide per-tariff kWh rates in the same way) and FixedOnline Dual Fuel from E-On -- fixed until June 2010 -- does seem to offer the best all-round rates, but it's still 50% guesswork.

Part of the problem is the over-complicated personalised energy consumption tables British Gas present on their website. They show columns for Meter Reading, Consumption, Average Consumption and Cumulative Consumption all of which are alleged to be in cubic metres, but if you take the difference between two Meter Readings and two Cumulative Consumption readings you get completely different values. For a one year period from my Gas account history the first of these values was 1023 whereas that the second was 11497. When I plugged the latter into a conversion table and then into USwitch's cost calculator, it refused to accept it saying it was three times the maximum for a UK household! I can only assume the Cumulative Readings column is in a unit other than cubic metres, despite what the table says. FWIW taking the figures from the Meter Readings column gave much more sensible results.

(I would post an image of the table here but as a new user the forum keeps spitting it back at me).

I'm the first to admit I'm not wizard with numbers but this just seems to be misleading for the sake of it. It's no wonder there's so much confusion over energy tariffs. It's almost as if they don't want to provide meaningful figures that you can plug straight into third-party comparison sites.

For the record, British Gas' Web Saver 2 tariff that was mentioned seems very close to what I'd be paying under the still-mysterious Price Promise June 2010. The gas prices per unit are marginally lower, as is the Tier 1 electricity, but Tier 2 electricity is 0.25p/kWh more expensive. Thanks to all the IT and AV gear in this house I have electricity demands higher than average (10,100kWh/year) so I fear any savings would be wiped out. I need to do some more accurate calculations, but it looks as though it's swings and roundabouts if I stick with British Gas.

In the mean time I'm going to keep plugging away at the comparison sites (and hoping they add PP June 2010 to their drop-downs to make comparisons simpler) until just before May 22nd, the decision date for PP June 2010. At that point, if nothing better has shown up, I suspect I will switch to E-On's FixedOnline Dual Fuel. Until June 2010, when the whole circus starts again :rolleyes2

Cardew

The personal energy columns are no good for the purpose of comparison tables.

You need to find out your annual consumption for gas in kWh from your last 4 quarterly bills or asking BG.

You say you already have your annual electricity at 10,100kWh - as you say extremely high.(the UK average is 3,300kWh if you have gas)

Armed with those figures the comparison sites will give you a good idea of the best tariff.

You might find getting your gas and electricity from different companies cheaper than dual fuel.

uncas

Cardew wrote: »

The personal energy columns are no good for the purpose of comparison tables.

In which case exactly what use are they? I was under the impression they were taken from the same sources (meter readings) that were used to calculate the bills.

You need to find out your annual consumption for gas in kWh from your last 4 quarterly bills or asking BG.

You say you already have your annual electricity at 10,100kWh - as you say extremely high.(the UK average is 3,300kWh if you have gas)

I was alarmed at that figure myself but every history I checked came back with the same answer (and I do have an awful lot of crap plugged in). I have just tried to double-check those figures with British Gas but my account histories have disappeared for both accounts, literally within the last few minutes. I can access only the last quarterly bill for each. A query has been entered with British Gas regarding this. The timing is appalling and is doing little for my paranoia :shocked:

You might find getting your gas and electricity from different companies cheaper than dual fuel.

Quite possibly, but to be honest I'm actually happy to pay a slight premium only to have to deal with one utility company. My track record with dealing with large organizations has not been a bed of roses and has done nothing to help my blood pressure over the years :mad: If I can limit the number of companies I may have to deal with I'm more than happy to pay a small "fee" for the privilege!

Fire_Fox

uncas wrote: »

I don't have any particular beef with British Gas and would be happy to stay with them, but obviously if I can save a few quid I'd be happier still.

I was alarmed at that figure myself but every history I checked came back with the same answer (and I do have an awful lot of crap plugged in).

Then why don't you sort out the waste issue? The cheapest/ easiest way is to stick everything that can be switched off when not in use onto multiway extension sockets and flick the switches as you go to work/ go to bed. Lazier but a little more expensive are plug-in devices which are switched using a remote control (PIR). You'd probably find these pay for themselves in no time if you are a heavy electricity user.

uncas

Cardew wrote: »

You say you already have your annual electricity at 10,100kWh - as you say extremely high.(the UK average is 3,300kWh if you have gas)

Recalculating using the raw figures from the last four bills -- which are, thankfully, now available once again through the BG website -- gives a more reasonable figure of 5964kWh. Still above average, as was expected, but far less shocking than the original figure. I'm now even more confused as to what the figures on those energy consumption tables represent. I think someone at British Gas just rolled a shedload of dice and added up the spots.

Armed with those figures the comparison sites will give you a good idea of the best tariff.

Three different websites are all recommending the E-On (E.ON? Eon? What's the official spelling?) tariff with an approximate saving of £75 compared with British Gas' Web Saver 2, which is the tariff with the closest per unit costs to Price Promise June 2010.

Before I bite the bullet and switch, does anyone have any experience or advice regarding contacting British Gas and asking them to price match? Do the utility companies have leeway to agree customised pricings like some of the telcos do, or would I be wasting my time? For continuity of administration I'd rather stay with British Gas, but it's not worth £75!

You might find getting your gas and electricity from different companies cheaper than dual fuel.

According to a couple of switching websites there's no benefit to me in doing that. The cheapest deal would save me no more than E-On's dual tariff, the next two would leave me worse off.

SwanJon

uncas wrote: »

does anyone have any experience or advice regarding contacting British Gas and asking them to price match? Do the utility companies have leeway to agree customised pricings like some of the telcos do, or would I be wasting my time?

I work for BG, and as far as I am aware, there are only set tariffs, although it never hurts to ask.
Regardless of who you end up with, really have a look at reducing your consumption, as you'll probably make bigger savings with that on top of switching.