BT Offer Issue

Peppa537

We have Fibre 2 BB with BT and are very happy with the speeds, never really had an issue although I'm quite happy to leave them for a better deal. As with everyone our bill has gone up and is now over £35 a month, we also still have 6 months to run on our contract. On Wednesday BT phoned on the landline and my husband was working from home so spoke to them (I was at work). They were phoning some customers whose contracts were ending later this year to offer deals now so they didn't lose them to competitors. He was offered Fibre 2 for £28.99 on a 2yr contract, it would have 1 price increase as for the 2nd we could negotiate again (BT let you do this within 3 months of your deal ending). My husband wanted to talk to me about it and the advisor said she was off for a week from yesterday but to call 150 and they'd set it up if we wanted to go ahead. I called them yesterday and they said they could see her note but as they didn't know about the offer and it came from a different outbound only department wouldn't put it through. They've emailed the original advisor but the offer was only for a week and she's not back until after it expires. I then tried on live chat and they just kept saying some offers can run out. When they realised we'd had a phone call for this deal they said they'd escalate it as a complaint because then the phone call will be listened to.
It annoys me when big companies contact customers with offers that seemingly don't exist. 

Peppa537

Also yesterday's advisor, although polite, was more interested in trying to sell us extras, upgrades, mobile contracts etc than put this offer through. 

Peppa537

Handily timed, just had some post from Trooli (the only full fibre network in my road) offering us 150Mbps for £25 a month. Also says if still in contract to give them a call. 

datz

Peppa537 said:

We have Fibre 2 BB with BT and are very happy with the speeds, never really had an issue although I'm quite happy to leave them for a better deal. As with everyone our bill has gone up and is now over £35 a month, we also still have 6 months to run on our contract.

BT's Fibre 2 is Openreach's higher tier FTTC product (iirc) - plenty of other providers will also (re)sell this same service. With new customer deals combined with cashback website offerings (or even going via comparison sites), you should easily be able to reduce that bill - and fairly significantly (haven't checked the market in the last few weeks, but around or sub-£20 shouldn't be too unrealistic).

However, the calculation is more complicated since you still have 6 months on your minimum contract period - this will still need to be paid if you break the contract and move elsewhere - so would probably eat into any savings.

Peppa537 said:

Handily timed, just had some post from Trooli (the only full fibre network in my road) offering us 150Mbps for £25 a month. Also says if still in contract to give them a call. 

Trooli will run fibre to your house, so the connection, on paper, will be better than what you currently have (assuming your usage can actually take advantage of it). But the issue regarding the early contract termination still remains - will they cover the early termination charge?

Peppa537

@datz I haven't spoken to Trooli yet so unsure. However we're not actually looking to leave the contract early, this has all happened just because BT contacted us with an offer to recontract now. If they do call back I won't be accepting the £28.99 now anyway, as you say there are better deals out there we can take when our contract ends (especially if inflation drops in the meantime). 

iniltous

Inflation reducing will mean prices rising less quickly, not that prices will reduce.

Peppa537

BT phoned again offering the £28.99 which I turned down as much better offers out there. However they're obviously very keen for us to recontract before the current one ends because yesterday they phoned us 3 times. I was in for the 3rd call and they offered fibre 2 for £31.99 which I unsurprisingly turned down, then said £24.99, I said yes if it's what I have now but it was for fibre 1, then when he looked to see if he could apply it for fibre 2 it was £26.99 as we have a phone line. Again I said I'm looking around at offers anyway so no need to commit to a 2yr contract now.
This is the first time ever they've contacted us with offers, I've always had to call them when my contract is near it's end, they must be losing a lot of customers or it's because we now have full fibre in the area (and not available from BT). We've still got months to run as well although some competitors will pay off your existing contract if you switch to them. I was wrong in my first post, my monthly bill is now £32 not £35.