Anyone else switch their BG tariff too early?

n_sonic

Hi All

So, like a lot of folks, I received my "your tariff is ending soon, here are your options" email.

I'm currently on the British Gas "HomeEnergy Fix Jun 2022" which ends on June 30th. My options were - do nothing and move to a variable rate, or switch to a new fixed rate tariff.

Given what I've been reading over the past week or so, I decided to click through to the site and compare, then switch to the new tariff (the "Loyalty Jun 23v1" one.)

My confirmation email told me that this will kick in within 24 hours. This was absolutely not clear and feels sneaky to me. I pride myself on being pretty clued up about this kind of thing, but even I missed that detail here. This essentially means paying 35-40% MORE than I would have done for my energy until the end of the month.

I'm now going through the "cooling off" process to cancel the change. And hopefully, the same tariff will be available to me at the end of the month.

But I was just wondering if anyone else has been caught out buy this? Or is it just me (very possible.)

Cheers

mrwhizzard

Am in a similar boat - though have not pulled the trigger for that reason. If I want to opt for a tariff , i don't want it to start asap and they do indeed not make it clear that it will take immediate effect rather than after June 30th.  Sneaky. 

Alnat1

By the time you want it to start it might not be available.

Shedman

Have you actually worked out how much that extra 35% will cost you for 30 days given the time of year and presumably very low usage at the moment vs the risk of a much higher fix come end of the month.   For us, as an example, it would only be about £10-12 for both utilities.

Might still be better to take the extra on the chin now....

n_sonic

Apologies - I missed these responses (doesn't look like I've got the notifications set up correctly!)

I ended up pulling the trigger two weeks early, after seeing the "Loyalty" tariff... disappear. The next one up was another £20 a month, so I chanced it (based on the logic above that we're not using much at the moment and I didn't want to miss out again.)

In my case - it looks like I can "ramp up" my payments for now, which I will do to soften the blow.

Sigh.