British Gas "prompt payment" discount a joke!

usignuolo

I have a British Gas account which I pay quarterly. Over the last quarter, due to various relatives staying and the fact I have a large chilly Victorian house, I had to keep the heating on almost continuously and ended up with a £600+ gas bill. What annoys me is not the size of the bill but the "prompt payment" discount offered by BG. It is around £3.68 (don't have the bill to hand right now)

Who are they kidding, that is around 0.5%. (I pay online BTW)

DVardysShadow

Well, it shows how much they value prompt payment.

Blenheim_2

What level of prompt payment discounts do other companies provide?

Mankysteve

There all pretty much the same.

KimYeovil

Mankysteve wrote: »

There all pretty much the same.

£150 per annum from Scottish Power (£37.50 per quarter (for dual fuel - £25 if gas only.))

spiro

You would save more money by going on a monthly DD tariff.

RHYSDAD

spiro wrote: »

You would save more money by going on a monthly DD tariff.

I'm on click 6 qtrly billing and could indeed save by going on monthly DD but what with energy companies making DD payments up as they go along, i won't even entertain them having my bank details. I just knock the thermostat down a degree to compensate.

glider3560

Does it really matter what the prompt payment discount is? Surely the best thing to compare is the overall price. If the bill is £100 cheaper than another supplier with a discount of £3.68 this is cheaper than a supplier that is £100 more expensive and offers a £20 discount.

PinkPig

You're complaining about a discount? No, it's not going to buy you a car, but it's better than not having a discount!

Lots of store and credit card reward programmes offer no more than about 0.5% either. Just because a discount is small doesn't make it worth complaining about.

usignuolo

BG claims to offer up to £15 per year in discounts, to "ease energy bills". What is the average household's annual energy bill running at? Last time I looked it was around £1200 and rising.

These discounts of .5% are rubblish and I am sure they are only done to make it appear they are responsive to complaints about rising energy prices. In practice they set the discount so low that hardly anyone takes it up and it doesn't actually cost them anything.

If they really wanted to get the money in they would offer a decent discount. Earlier in my career I worked on the IT accounting systems for a major wholesaler. It was quite clear that if we only offered paltry discounts for prompt payment, nobody paid promptly. Once we offered a more realistic discount - we got in lots more money on time which eased our cashflow no end.

BG really don't care. How much profit did BG make last year?

JasX

usignuolo wrote: »

I have a British Gas account which I pay quarterly. Over the last quarter, due to various relatives staying and the fact I have a large chilly Victorian house, I had to keep the heating on almost continuously and ended up with a £600+ gas bill. What annoys me is not the size of the bill but the "prompt payment" discount offered by BG. It is around £3.68 (don't have the bill to hand right now)

Who are they kidding, that is around 0.5%. (I pay online BTW)

are you certain you're on the best tariff by paying quarterly, you'lll probably find 'prompt payment' discounts running into hundreds if you switch to a competative direct debit based tariff.

Have you considered investing in (and/or getting a grant for) some better insulation/draught exclusion measures to make you more energy efficient?

alternatively you can continue to stump up £600odd a quarter