Cheapest way of paying for Octopus

kidwell25

I have gas and electricity with Octopus (having previously been moved over from Shell). I currently pay on receipt of monthly bill, using my Chase card, so getting 1% cashback. I do like to only pay for what I use but am wondering whether there is a cheaper way of doing that as it's not obvious from the website how much cheaper the various types of direct debits are.

1. I understand variable direct debit is an option. Would that result in a saving of more than 1%?
2. I read on a Reddit board that someone had set up a normal recurring direct debit of £1 and then made up the balance each month by paying by card, presumably benefiting from some level of DD discount whilst also getting the cashback on their card. Does anyone else do this?

EssexHebridean

Option 2 has definitely been mentioned on here before. 

Qyburn

Check with Octopus but in most cases payment by Direct Debit is around 5% less than other methods. You might be able to do a small monthly fixed DD of say £10, then pay off the balance with your card.

Bendo

You can pay by variable direct debit and make a card payment once the bill is generated,  the DD won't be take that way.

That's what I do, I pay with Amex.

kidwell25

Bendo said:

You can pay by variable direct debit and make a card payment once the bill is generated,  the DD won't be take that way.

That's what I do, I pay with Amex.

That sounds perfect - basically just continuing what I'm already doing, but presumably at a slightly lower cost. I'll contact them about setting up the variable DD.

wrf12345

phone them rather than email for variable direct debit

la531983

kidwell25 said:

I have gas and electricity with Octopus (having previously been moved over from Shell). I currently pay on receipt of monthly bill, using my Chase card, so getting 1% cashback. I do like to only pay for what I use but am wondering whether there is a cheaper way of doing that as it's not obvious from the website how much cheaper the various types of direct debits are.

1. I understand variable direct debit is an option. Would that result in a saving of more than 1%?
2. I read on a Reddit board that someone had set up a normal recurring direct debit of £1 and then made up the balance each month by paying by card, presumably benefiting from some level of DD discount whilst also getting the cashback on their card. Does anyone else do this?

Yes. Octopus are happy for me to have a £1 DD, I then top up every month on my Chase card.

Gerry1

I've just started to pay Octopus via Amex, seems fine so far.  In future I'll probably pay £1 less than the indicated MVDD amount; apparently DDs can expire if not used for 13 months.  That might be a pain if some improbable-but-not-impossible event prevented a manual payment being made.

I use a similar system for council tax, Amex via PayPoint.  Chase doesn't give cashback on CT payments and the council doesn't accept Amex nor does it mention PayPoint on its website, but it will happily issue a personalised PayPoint card.  It's then a doddle to use it over the counter, although a few PayPoint outlets don't accept Amex.

Spoonie_Turtle

I do option 2, albeit £10 DD as they wouldn't let me reduce it to the pre-EBSS level of £3.  So I get the Chase cashback paying the rest.

SAC2334

wrf12345 said:

phone them rather than email for variable direct debit

Worked OK by email for me although phone would probably been quicker .Variable direct debit works very well for me too. I get cashback on any direct debits with Santander which pays the £3 monthly account they charge 

northernstar007

also like most on here, have a good credit in acc and allows my DD £1 and then £60 atm £80ish in winter on my amex nectar card