Landline Discount for BT lines without internet £7 per month saving.

Andrewha

Following an Ofcom ruling in 2018, all customers who use a B.T landline without an internet services connected to that B.T line will receive a £7 discount on their monthly line rental. This amounts to an annual saving of £7 per month x 12 = £84 on you bill. This discount ins't automatically applied by B.T, you have to request this by calling them up directly. Also while you are on to B.T see if you can reduce your bills by changing some of the services you might be paying for in advance, such as call plans. B.T can look at your call usage and suggest ways of reducing your landline bill. It's often better these days to use your mobile phone's inclusive call plan if you have free calls included in your contract to landline numbers as you may already be paying for that option within your contract, so may be prudent to think carefully and use you mobile instead and remove any costly B.T plan from your landline account, simply just pay as you go on your B.T landline account. If you have other internet providers such as Sky or plusnet etc, which still use the B.T landline infrastructure then you won't get the discount, however if you have Virgin cable internet, their infrastructure doesn't use the B.T 'lines' so you will be entitled to the discount. Think about what services you do use, with which provider ie television, landline, B.T calling plans and mobile phone internet 4G and calling contract plans. Get the right setup for you and don't double up on services you don't need. 4G is often better and quicker than most B.T / landlines. A good example of what savings I made was, my elderly parents don't have the internet at home so they were entitled to the discount. I also have a B.T landline but use Virgin internet so I now have the B.T discount. B.T won't backdate the costs so time is the essence and get it sorted ASAP. There must be millions of older people who don't use the internet and once again in a discriminatory position where they loose out because they are not internet or online savvy. Please Please Please pass on this Money Saving Tip and get get as many people as you can the 'secret' discount. There should be a legal clause to make B.T apply this discount automatically for applicable accounts. Another half baked legislative ruling. Do it today. Ring B.T on 0800 800150.

JJ_Egan

Totally confused.

Andrewha

Anybody that has a B.T landline that doesn't have internet via that line is entitled to the discount. EG my mum hasn't got internet so her landline rent has now been discounted from £18.99 to £11.99 per month, simply by calling B.T and asking for the discount that was forced legislation by Ofcom back in 2018. You must ask B.T for it, they won't automatically give you the discount and they won't backdate the charges, just applies to future charges. I have virgin broadband but that doesn't use the B.T phone line so I have also got the discount because my landline has only a telephone service not internet. Hope that is clear.

JJ_Egan

This is a bit like the no internet service from BT .
BT basic if memory serves me right .


So you are saying customers with a phone service paying circa £20 pm for line rental can get a rebate of £7 pm .

Browntoa

Should have been applied automatically

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2017/charges-cut-million-bt-customers

Not claimed

https://btplc.com/inclusion/NewsAndEvents/News/lineonlyreduction/index.htm

iniltous

Isn't this 'old news' , this was discussed at length when first introduced,many months ago.
TBH, BT did contact their phone line only customers to advise them that they could benefit from this reduction in line rental if they didn't have a broadband service, there is always the chance some were missed out, but most benefitted without much if any effort required by them, perhaps the OP's parents didn't open the letter thinking it was junk mail, or didn't appreciate that it was an invite to reduce line rental if it applied to them , or perhaps it was just an oversight.
There was ( and probably still is ) a grey area and that was the situation the OP is in, BT landline , and broadband from another company (in this case using VM but would be the same with any non OR delivered broadband supplier ) , the direction from Ofcom was that anyone without broadband and renting a phoneline from BT should get a discount, the OP has broadband ( just not from BT) so does the discount apply ?..at the time the advice was simple enough , BT don't know if you have broadband with VM or not, so if BT havent contacted you, contact them.

As far as the OP, given that VM standalone broadband is virtually the same price as VM phoneline and broadband 'bundle', it's strange that they pay around £12 or £19 depending on getting the discount per month when it would be almost 'free' with VM
VM may well have phoneline only customers but the Ofcom direction doesnt apply to them ( or anyone else ) just BT