Energy: Find the cheapest supplier & earn cashback

hansi

No. When you switch, you will be asked to take a meter reading and your previous supplier will send you the final bill which you must pay before the new supplier takes over. Nice thought though!

Dawn2509

A salesman came to my door, I think he was British Gas, and I explained I use the online searches when I want to change supplier. He said that doesn't produce the best deals, and that I need to go to each supplier's website to find the lowest price. Does anyone have experience of trying this? I've only ever used the comparison sites.

I'm used to doing the car insurance search, adding the couple of extra insurance companies that won't take part in the convenient system, and have looked through the gas and electricity article, but couldn't see anything about the need to contact suppliers directly, just an explanation of the slight problems with using uswitch, etc.

NonGeographicalMan

Dawn2509 wrote: »

A salesman came to my door, I think he was British Gas, and I explained I use the online searches when I want to change supplier. He said that doesn't produce the best deals, and that I need to go to each supplier's website to find the lowest price. Does anyone have experience of trying this? I've only ever used the comparison sites.

He is not telling the truth. The main energy comparison website currently cover all companies operating in the marketplace in terms of showing you who gives the best deals.

There was a brief delay while some of the sites added Ovo Energy a few months ago in some cases but I believe they have now all done so. The main thing they are not so good at in some cases is telling you about any penalties charged by some companies for leaving them early.

if he was talking about airline flights then he would be right to say that some airlines only give you the cheapest deals if you look up flights on their own site rather than through https://www.expedia.co.uk etc.

Dawn2509

Thank you very much for a prompt and helpful reply. It's what I suspected, so it's a relief to know at least some of my common sense still works properly!

NonGeographicalMan

Dawn2509 wrote: »

Thank you very much for a prompt and helpful reply. It's what I suspected, so it's a relief to know at least some of my common sense still works properly!

The energy comparison websites don't ever intentionally miss anything out but occasionally they are just out of date compared to the companies own websites. For instance when I switched my mum to EDF Energy's Online Tariff Version 5 only https://www.energylinx.co.uk were showing it as being her cheapest option as the other sites hadn't yet realised that EDF had recently made the tariff available to Electricity only customers as well as Dual Fuel ones.

So it is definitely worth running a comparison on several of the different web sites and then querying why there there are any significant discrepancies.

But what the chap told you implied that some of the best deals are not ever offered through the comparison websites directly but in my experience that simply isn't true.

However you will often only get truly the best deal by doing a comparison through the energy comparison website and then applying to actually switch to the company you have chosen via https://www.topcashback.co.uk so that you also get cashback as well (the cashback that the energy comparison websites would otherwise have earned instead of you).

anon_ymous

I havent checked out energylinx, however a cousin of mine used to work for eon and they used to regularly get customers that used to get their gas and electric from other companies. One of the companies was called "Atlantic energy" and eon simply could not beat the quotes, so the sales advisors couldnt say much but to say stick with who you are with, seeing as though they cant exactly lie to the customers, or risk the company being sued!

Any way, heres the link:
http://www.atlanticeg.co.uk/OurPrices/

nemoo

Is it me or do any energy comparison sites run cash back deals for southern electric? Their prices seem quite competitive for London but none of the big comparison sites seem to have direct signup option?

nemoo

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

He is not telling the truth. The main energy comparison website currently cover all companies operating in the marketplace in terms of showing you who gives the best deals.

There was a brief delay while some of the sites added Ovo Energy a few months ago in some cases but I believe they have now all done so. The main thing they are not so good at in some cases is telling you about any penalties charged by some companies for leaving them early.

if he was talking about airline flights then he would be right to say that some airlines only give you the cheapest deals if you look up flights on their own site rather than through https://www.expedia.co.uk etc.

I beg to differ partly on the accuracy of information on comparison sites as I found them to be inaccurate by quite a margin with unit prices. By comparison sites, I meant Uswitch, energylinx, energyhelpline to name but few.

I'm in East Anglia and my parents are in London so I've been looking into better deals than we are currently on for both regions. Although all sites pick out Southern electric as the cheapest none of them detail the tariffs correctly when I compared their price info to the prices listed on the supplier' website. To clarify, they all listed the right tariff name but not the individual unit rates!

So, IMHO I wouldn't take the referral sites info as gospel:exclamati

Btb, checking on all major suppliers I did eventually confirm that southern electric go direct was in fact the cheapest for the two regions ;-)

RootyTooty_2

hi all

sorry if this question has already been answered, but if I look at the price comparison sites now, will they take into account the energy providers that aer lowering their prices at the end of March?

What I mean is will they compare the prices as they are today, or will they take into account the forthcoming price cuts.

Many thanks

nemoo

Personally, I don't think the prices displayed now will take the end of march price cuts in to account and these sites (where they can) effectively allow you to sign up to something that's available now i.e. you are signing up to a current tariff and not a future offer (albeit a definite offer) - if you see what I mean.