British Gas free energy days

pochase

So borrowing a few quid to BG was worse than paying for 25 days of electricity?

They could not have continued with the 7£ once you were high in credit.

Or if you say surcharge, do you mean they wanted to charge you £7 per month in exchange for the 25 days? That is not direct debit.

BUFF

pochase said:

Or if you say surcharge, do you mean they wanted to charge you £7 per month in exchange for the 25 days? That is not direct debit.

actually, it was to be by DD.
In my case it wasn't 25 days (much lower, iirc 5) but it still worked out the same - BG were going to charge me more for the "free" offer than the value of the offer to me based on typical usage & unit charge.
Sadly, don't have the email to copy here as long deleted but I did check it carefully at the time  & it did not make financial sense for me (it may have been part of a package, can't really remember). I have very low & consistent usage so running extra things on a particular day not really an option.

Mstty

@buff so to confirm you would not loss the in the region of £5 a month it wasn't a subscription cost for the free days you just didn't go for it due to being a low user.

I mean a free day I would whack everything on but OK.

My initial response on post 4 was to @wild666 so perhaps this was their reasoning too or maybe there were some hidden T&C's that weren't to your advantage.

BUFF

Mstty said:

@buff so to confirm you would not loss the in the region of £5 a month it wasn't a subscription cost for the free days you just didn't go for it due to being a low user.

I mean a free day I would whack everything on but OK.

My initial response on post 4 was to @wild666 so perhaps this was their reasoning too or maybe there were some hidden T&C's that weren't to your advantage.

No, I didn't go for it because I calculated that it would actually cost me more than I would gain.
In my case, it was much less than 25 "free" days & I presume (can't remember) also less cost than wild666 & as I have also said it may have been part of a package.
If it had even been cost neutral I would have taken it up on the off chance that I could max it 1 day.

Mstty

@BUFF probably should have led with "might have been a subscription charge" rather than just an increase in DD as that is why no one could understand the financials around it all👍

BUFF

I disagree but whatever ...

RogerBareford

BUFF said:

RogerBareford said:

BUFF said:

25 free days in 1 year is ~7%. £7 monthly DD increase is £84 p.a.
If £84 was more than 7% of their annual spend at that time it would not make financial sense.
I didn't take up my free electricity days offer for similar financial reckoning.

That logic doesn't make sense. The direct debit is just the amount your paying per month which they expect you to use averaged out over a year.

If they increase your direct debit it doesn't mean your paying more for your energy if the unit rates havn't changed. So if you have refused free electricity days becuase of a higher DD payment then you have made a bit of a mistake there.

No, I was offered "free electricity days" in exchange for an increased DD (by way of a surcharge). The value of the "free electricity days " to me based on my usage & cost per kWh was less than the DD surcharge. Good for BG's finances, bad for mine.

But if the unit rates are the same then you will be paying exactly the same for the energy no matter what the direct debit is set at.

A direct debit just takes the money and puts it into their account and then they withdraw from that account based on how much energy you use. If the direct debit is £100 or £900 a month it makes no difference to how much you are charged. So if the only differene was the DD amount then it was definetly worth getting the free days.

But not you are also mentioning something about a subscription charge?. So are you saying to get 25 days "free" electricity you had to pay a £7 a month subscription?