Renewing broadband prior to April 2023 price rises

Anon971215

Hello MSE community,

I am coming to the end of my first broadband contract and I am looking to change to a cheaper deal. I have a 2 year deal with Vodafone that ends on 01/04/2023. I currently pay £24.05 per month with Vodafone (but I am aware this will probably significantly increase when my contract ends). The best on the market at the minute is a 2 year deal with 3 for £20 a month but there is an offer to get the first 3 months free (averaging £17.50 over the 2 years). While this is a significant saving from what I am paying now, this price doesn't account for the April 23' or April 24' price rises. So I would actually be paying £22.78 per month until April 24' and around £24.81 until April 25' (averaging £20.94 over the 2 years). I have looked at delaying the start date until my existing contract ends on 01/04/2023 (which would save £2.05 a month over the 2 years) but sadly that doesn't appear to be an option with 3 (but if it is possible with 3 or another provider please let me know).

So basically I think I have 2 options:

I can either wait until after the April 23' price rise has taken effect before looking for the cheapest deal available giving me a full 12 months without any in contract price rises (I accept this would mean extending with my current provider for 1 month or going without broadband for a number of days/weeks until I can get a new provider to connect me in early April).
Or I just commit to the deal with 3 and accept the April 23' price rise and the slight overlap with my current provider until the end of March.

Essentially what I am unsure of is if the deals for new customers will be similarly priced in early April as they are now (~£17.50 per month ish) or if they will take account of the mid-contract price rises in April 23' (i.e increase by 13.9%)? I can't imagine that new customer deals ever actually increase at the same rate as mid-contract rises would indicate because the deals would be horrendously expensive by now but I am not sure if broadband suppliers strategically increase their prices in April and gradually lower them throughout the year to account for the revenue they would loose from the annual mid-contract rises.

I appreciate this is a fairly niche situation so there might not be any certainty on what the best option is and I'm relying on a certain degree of crystal ball gazing from the MSE community due to the volatility of broadband prices but any advice would be much appreciated?

Many thanks,
Anon971215
 

flaneurs_lobster

Can we assume that you know that Three broadband is a 4G/5G delivery? 

Anon971215

Yes you can, I'm happy it meets my requirements just trying to work out how best to save money over the course of the plan really.

flaneurs_lobster

I think the issue here is the same for anyone who has a contract expiring in the 2-3 months prior to April, broadband or mobile phone. 

Personally I'm going to let my mobile contract expire this month and then sort out a new one in April.

You can try to tie down a supplier to saying that there will be no increase in April if you start/renew a contract now but when  if it happens regardless you are doomed to hours on the phone to their CS trying to get it resolved. 

As you say, it's crystal-ball gazing trying to guess the price levels post-April 1, but at least you'll know what they are if you wait.

Anon971215

Yeah I think I’m likely to get a better deal by waiting until April, I spoke to 3’s CS who said there is no guarantee the deal will be available in April and there was no way of delaying the start date to not include the mid contract price rise in April 23 (pretty much what I was expecting).

I think I will keep an eye on the comparison sites for the best deals in case something better comes along but I suspect I will end up making a saving by waiting until April and avoiding the £2.78 monthly price increase at the very beginning of the new contract.

If anyone has any idea of whether broadband deal prices are pretty consistent throughout the year or if there’s a spike in April that would be very helpful?

Ryan_Holden

Everything will go up in April, that's just life. I respect the hustle to save as much as possible but I think when you're getting into depth on £1/£2 savings, you have too tight a tolerance window to not be disappointed.

Anon971215

That's a fair point, but if a similar deal is available in April I would be saving £2-£3 a month totalling £60 (ish) over the 2 year contract as CPI was so high this year. I appreciate that isn't a massive gain over that time period for most people but its certainly worth the time to consider for anyone in a tight financial situation. I will certainly be happy with any saving I get out of this as its no extra work than just agreeing to a deal now other than being patient. My only concern with doing this was if broadband providers routinely increase their new customer prices in April by CPI + an additional percentage which would see me make a loss by missing out on a good deal that even factoring in the immediate price increase in April would work out cheaper overall.

Ryan_Holden

No no, I'm sorry if I came over as condescending. I fully appreciate it's a decent saving over the time period. My point is just that, regardless of it being real and significant, it's a small number in relation to the percentage rises and CPI at the moment that it in fact becomes part of the "wobble" on price increases.

In summary, it's a good saving to have. But I feel like most contracts will eat that just in the small percentage rises anyway.

Hope I'm being clear.

Anon971215

No need to apologise Ryan. Yes that makes perfect sense, I do suspect that as you say any savings would be much less than the normal variation in the best prices that happens throughout the year and I would be surprised if providers had not caught on to this situation to some degree and strategically raise their prices in April to prevent them loosing out. However, given that CPI is/was so high, avoiding the coming April price rise and effectively only having one price increase halfway through the 2 year contract in April 24' might be a reasonable benefit to me.

I think I will take a chance and wait until April hoping that the new customer deals have not increased by anything close to CPI. I may well miss out on a pretty good deal now but I think its a chance worth taking. Also, I will try and get some quotes from providers at the end of March and see if I can get them to honour that price in early April to hedge my bets just in case the new customer deals in April are rubbish.

Bronvahl

Anon971215 said:

Hello MSE community,

I am coming to the end of my first broadband contract and I am looking to change to a cheaper deal. I have a 2 year deal with Vodafone that ends on 01/04/2023. I currently pay £24.05 per month with Vodafone (but I am aware this will probably significantly increase when my contract ends). The best on the market at the minute is a 2 year deal with 3 for £20 a month but there is an offer to get the first 3 months free (averaging £17.50 over the 2 years). While this is a significant saving from what I am paying now, this price doesn't account for the April 23' or April 24' price rises. So I would actually be paying £22.78 per month until April 24' and around £24.81 until April 25' (averaging £20.94 over the 2 years). I have looked at delaying the start date until my existing contract ends on 01/04/2023 (which would save £2.05 a month over the 2 years) but sadly that doesn't appear to be an option with 3 (but if it is possible with 3 or another provider please let me know).

So basically I think I have 2 options:

I can either wait until after the April 23' price rise has taken effect before looking for the cheapest deal available giving me a full 12 months without any in contract price rises (I accept this would mean extending with my current provider for 1 month or going without broadband for a number of days/weeks until I can get a new provider to connect me in early April).
Or I just commit to the deal with 3 and accept the April 23' price rise and the slight overlap with my current provider until the end of March.

Essentially what I am unsure of is if the deals for new customers will be similarly priced in early April as they are now (~£17.50 per month ish) or if they will take account of the mid-contract price rises in April 23' (i.e increase by 13.9%)? I can't imagine that new customer deals ever actually increase at the same rate as mid-contract rises would indicate because the deals would be horrendously expensive by now but I am not sure if broadband suppliers strategically increase their prices in April and gradually lower them throughout the year to account for the revenue they would loose from the annual mid-contract rises.

I appreciate this is a fairly niche situation so there might not be any certainty on what the best option is and I'm relying on a certain degree of crystal ball gazing from the MSE community due to the volatility of broadband prices but any advice would be much appreciated?

Many thanks,
Anon971215
 

You can see deals on weekly newsletter that include the obscene April 23 price hike, but call your supplier, ask for retention dept and ask what notice you need to give to leave, then haggle, do not accept any up-selling to stuff you don't need.  Remember you can always get a one month contract for mobile wifi for £16  to tide you over.

When I renewed with my last supplier I asked my supplier to match their own offer, so Vodafone currently offering £18 

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/broadband-and-tv/cheap-broadband/

or mention that Virgin offering £18.40 for 264mb

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/redir/c7fe30f9

Never accept their first offer, say "no you will have to do better" and end the call, often there are commission hungry types on foreign call centres, try at different times of the day and you might get a different call centre who are more open to doing a deal.

Anon971215

Thanks for the advice, I saw the same deal in the MSE weekly email and have just agreed to an 18 month contract with Virgin which will work out roughly £33.27 cheaper over 18 months than the deal with Three I mentioned in my initial post due to the £100 bill credit and the lack of bill increase until April 24'. I was also able to get the contract to start and have my hub installed on the day my current contract ends. I'm pretty happy with that deal but thought it might be worth seeing if Vodafone could beat it, keeping the same speed they were only willing to discount the additional £3 charge for being on an out of contract plan with them so my new rate as of April 23' would have been 24.05 + 15% ish or a lower speed for £23 a month +15% for the April 23' price increase, so I have given them notice that I want to be disconnected once the contract finishes.

All round it was definitely a good move waiting until deals that do not increase in April 23' came around as this will save me roughly 10% and I will get higher speed fibre broadband (no doubt there was a degree of luck involved in timing it with a good deal coming out). Certainly in years past when inflation has been more reasonable this would have been a waste of effort and I could have possibly lost out. Quite a bad sign of the times that hair-splitting like this can make such a big saving over 18 months in what should be a very competitive and well regulated market.

On a side note; it seems incredibly unfriendly to consumers that purchase new broadband deals in March that are immediately hit with a massive price increase. Obviously its in the contract but advertising a price that the customer will not actually be paying at any point feels pretty disingenuous especially when the exact price increase has been baked in for 2-3 months since the inflation figures were released. I suppose the price increases were historically very small back when inflation was close to 0% but given the current climate it feels like a massive increase to the advertised prices, and given the average consumer probably doesn't look that closely at their contract I feel it would be fairer to have the April price rise factored into the effective monthly cost shortly after the inflation figures are publicised.