Should we avoid energy help?

Spender£

My gran has old style key and card meters (non-smart) at her home and we helped her to top them up like crazy before April of this year on advice from Martin to avoid the price rise.
Her combined Gas and Electric is around £8 per seven days and has been the same since March 22. We are worried that when BG send out these vouchers that if she tops up it will become the new rate however if she fails to top up she would miss out on the £400 vouchers.

We told her to ignore the door if the meter reading data collection man wants to read the meter just in case the price goes up but we don't really understand it all, we just think she should make the most of her cheap energy until it runs out.
We wonder if it would be counter productive to use the vouchers because as soon as she puts the key in the meter it will upscale to the new rate, does anybody know about this.

EssexHebridean

well firstly, how much credit does she still have on the meter at the moment? It could be that she'll need to top up anyway, in which case you might be worrying for nothing? 

Spender£

EssexHebridean said:

well firstly, how much credit does she still have on the meter at the moment? It could be that she'll need to top up anyway, in which case you might be worrying for nothing? 

Hi, She has around £220 on the Electric Meter plus £40 on the Key and £160 on the Gas with £45 on the top up card all purchased in March 22. I'm just thinking at a rate of £8 every seven days combined that she might make it until the summer at this rate but of course she might use more heating when we get into the colder months.

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername

Don't forget when she tops up they can backdate the price change: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/03/martin-lewis--warning-the--top-up-prepay-meters-before-april--tr/ in order to claw the money back they have lost. Not saying they will, but the risk is there

Xbigman

I don't have a top up meter myself but I know those who do and they both tell me that topping up the meter the day before a price change does not work. Eventually the prices on the meter are updated and the meter adjusts for the difference. Your Gran might as well top up now and let everything sort itself out before its too big a price shock. We are after all heading into the colder months now. 
If others have different advice I'd like to see it.


Darren 

Spender£

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername said:

Don't forget when she tops up they can backdate the price change: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/03/martin-lewis--warning-the--top-up-prepay-meters-before-april--tr/ in order to claw the money back they have lost. Not saying they will, but the risk is there

BG told us they would not do this back in April however they might do it for this recent October rise i suppose but the claw back could come i think cos i know people who are paying much more than a pound a day.

Ultrasonic

Spender£ said:

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername said:

Don't forget when she tops up they can backdate the price change: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/03/martin-lewis--warning-the--top-up-prepay-meters-before-april--tr/ in order to claw the money back they have lost. Not saying they will, but the risk is there

BG told us they would not do this back in April however they might do it for this recent October rise i suppose but the claw back could come i think cos i know people who are paying much more than a pound a day.

Thinking in terms of 'cost per day' really isn't very informative, since this will depend on how much energy anybody uses as well as cost per kWh. 

Spender£

According to this Mse page it will not work for gas anymore just likely for electric.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/prepay-top-up-trick/