When to switch to avoid penalties?

WillBur82

Advice sought on timings of changing suppliers to avoid early termination penalties.

I'm currently in a 12 month contract with BT fibre (ending 22.06.17) and believe I have to provide BT with 30 days notice that I want to not renew the contract.

Ideally I would like to take up the Sky offer which is currently limited to 26.05.2017. Is that actually possible for me?

So 2 questions:

A) can I sign up to Sky now and just pay the remaining month to BT - effectively Sky will have supplied me about 3 weeks early from their 'go live' date than my BT contract is due to finish. And I'll just pay the final bill to Bt but not have used their service in the last 3 weeks of the contract?

Should I wait until 21st May, then contact BT and advise them I will be leaving them at the end of the contract, then wait until about 2 weeks before 22nd June and then try and find a better deal than the 'special deal' BT has offered me post 22.06?

It would be handy if the MSE article addressed the timings of when you should start switching to make it as seamless as possible so you don't spend any more time than necessary with an old supplier.

Thanks

Will

wongataa

Your contract with BT doesn't end in June. The minimum term ends. If you do nothing you will keep the BT service with the regular price. Only if you sign up to a new deal to you enter a new contract with a new minimum term.

The options are:
sign up to the Sky deal at the latest possible moment and when the service transfers pay off BT whatever they charge to leave 2/3 weeks early. It should really just be whatever you would pay BT fo those weeks if you didn't leave.

Or you can wait until your minimum term ends and look for what is the best deal then and swap.

You don't have to tell BT you are leaving. You just sign up to a new provider and they will notify your current provider.

iniltous

As already mentioned, you only should contact BT if you want to renegotiate a 'new' deal for after the minimum term has expired, or if you want to cease service completely ...if your intention is to move provider, it's a 'gaining provider' led process, in other words you contact a 'new' company that like BT, uses Openreach 'wires' , and that new company arranges the migration from BT to them, you don't contact BT as that could potentially mess the transfer up.
Is it worth paying early termination charges now to get the deal on offer at the moment ? or is waiting until the BT minimum term has expired and then looking at what's available ?...is a question you probably could only answer yourself, after doing the math
As far as the original point, if you want to avoid ETC's , wait until the minimum term has expired, or at least take the minimum notice period and time to transfer service into account when signing up with a new provider
A transfer from one provider to another could take 14 days, but can take longer, you pay your old provider until the changeover date , if that's before the minimum term you pay ETC, if it's after , you pay that 'full' month and get a refund of the part month

AndyPK

Usually BT charge you a massive amount for month 13. And it's almost unavoidable that you will pay some of month 13.

So if the new deal is excellent, I would be looking at the early termination fee's with BT.

Either way you will end up paying BT something.

If you can't be bothered to read the small print, you could phone BT up and ask, but be clear you aren't making any changes.

Mister_G

Beware that BT may also charge you for the modem/router if you finish early.

teddysmum

I rang Sky, the other day, about my tv service and mentioned that I wanted to return for phone and broadband, as soon as my PlusNet contract was over, but that was a number of months, yet.


The man I spoke to said that it was a pity the end of my minimum term wasn't nearer as Sky will reimburse you up to £100 if you leave early to join Sky.


This would need confirming, but do remember that when Sky took over from O2 and I moved line from BT, Sky paid the early leaving penalty, which was small for me as line was prepaid and the minimum term had only days to run.

WillBur82

Thanks TM. I'll contact Sky and see if they'll entertain reimbursing me any early termination fees. It looks like it could be around £80 in a worst case scenario.