Avro Energy reviews: Give your feedback

brewerdave

Consumerist said:

brewerdave said:

My personal choice, purely for comparison purposes , is the Citizens Advice tool. Seems to list most of the available tariffs and is updated pretty quickly.
 I plug the chosen tariff info into my own spreadsheets to work out true savings (as distinct from the OFGEM dictated figures !!) . . .

I've noticed that recent updates to SLCs do not require suppliers to use the misleading pro-rata quotes basis which Ofgem used to prescribe.

Since the old system often exaggerated savings, however, I don't know whether suppliers are still using it.

Just did a check on Citizens advice - it is still showing savings based on me being switched to supplier's SVR at the end of the fixed period. For example, its showing I can "save" £70 pa on gas if I switch to So, but both p.per kwh and s/charge are appreciably higher.

Yellowvest23

Thanks victor2, just done that and it does all you say and automatically offers the superglow tariff,however when I click "Renew now"  It just freezes the screen. Will keep trying and Ive also emailed them with the request.

Yellowvest23

brewerdave said:

Consumerist said:

brewerdave said:

My personal choice, purely for comparison purposes , is the Citizens Advice tool. Seems to list most of the available tariffs and is updated pretty quickly.
 I plug the chosen tariff info into my own spreadsheets to work out true savings (as distinct from the OFGEM dictated figures !!) . . .

I've noticed that recent updates to SLCs do not require suppliers to use the misleading pro-rata quotes basis which Ofgem used to prescribe.

Since the old system often exaggerated savings, however, I don't know whether suppliers are still using it.

Just did a check on Citizens advice - it is still showing savings based on me being switched to supplier's SVR at the end of the fixed period. For example, its showing I can "save" £70 pa on gas if I switch to So, but both p.per kwh and s/charge are appreciably higher.

brewerdave, if you put todays date in for the end of your tariff you'll get a result with no SVR included.

Tightaz

These guys are a train wreck for customer service.  I switched away to Yorkshire Energy in April and still haven’t been issued a final bill from Avro to settle.  I’ve called once and was told to wait. Now I’m trying to call and for existing customers, get told no one is available, call back later and it hangs up.  I’ve written to them to say I’m no longer at the address and will not be following them up to settle the account. Frankly if they can’t issue a bill for me to pay, they must have plenty of money.

i would advise to avoid this company.

FYI- Yorkshire Energy issued my final bill when I moved out of that property within 10 minutes by email, after a short phone call to provide the final meter readings. 5 Stars.

*UPDATE* - They have finally issued the final bill, 3 and a half months after we switched away and with me needing to follow them up.

victor2

Yellowvest23 said:

Thanks victor2, just done that and it does all you say and automatically offers the superglow tariff,however when I click "Renew now"  It just freezes the screen. Will keep trying and Ive also emailed them with the request.

If you haven't already, try clearing your history and cookies in your browser, or try a different browser.

Failing that, they do IME respond to emails within the allotted time, so that might work.

Rosa_Damascena

Just to say that 3 months in I'm happy with Avro. No hassle thus far and I've seen the savings I expected on my final energy usage estimate.

onlyfoolsandparking

I'm currently on 'simple and superfixed' till Feb 21 and was wondering whether to swap to 'superglow' but the increase in standing charges put me off BUT I think I'm missing a trick here. After reading quite a few threads regarding standing charges and high usage I'm wondering if I would be better on a lower tariff with higher standing charges, my current usage is 21000 gas and 4100 electric, I'm even thinking of going separate suppliers, any thoughts? 

BooJewels

Because I'm a high user at home (my Avro account is with a property I look after, not my own) I've always gone for a lower unit price as that represents a better saving for me.  A few pennies more per day on the standing charge is going to be less than 20 quid per year difference, but a penny per kWh might be 80 or 90 quid per year difference.

As you already know what your annual usage us, just work out the annual bill yourself using the different tariffs and see which is better value for your own pattern of use.

Telegraph_Sam

I hit on this conundrum when I first started taking energy costs seriously.  In theory the more reputable search engines should provide the answer to all such permutations by default. In practice I find that there is no substitute for using one's own spreadsheet as a cross-check (it is surprising just what discrepancies arise, most especially over the claimed "savings), not least because this can take account of things like exit fees, SV rates, loyalty bonuses, cash backs, dual fuel discounts etc quite explicitly rather than rely on what assumptions are applied behind the scenes. Once the "template" has been developed it is not difficult in input the variables and try out the various what-if's

BooJewels

Telegraph_Sam said:

[...] In theory the more reputable search engines should provide the answer to all such permutations by default. In practice I find that there is no substitute for using one's own spreadsheet as a cross-check (it is surprising just what discrepancies arise, most especially over the claimed "savings),   [...]

I do the same - having a formula in a spreadsheet means that I can just enter some variables and get my own numbers.

One thing I would point out to people new to these sort of calculations is that the 'savings' they present you with tend to be over their worst rate of the default variable rate or whatever - not necessarily the tariff you're already on or one you would choose.  So those numbers tend to be a little skewed and need to be taken with a pinch of salt.  Especially if you're coming to the end of a fixed term tariff, they tend to dump you back onto the default rate, if you don't choose a new tariff - and this is what they use for comparisons.