Energy: Find the cheapest supplier & earn cashback

curlygirl1971 · 2 August 2011 at 12:53PM

grumpycrab wrote: »

Not sure what to do. If I stick with BG I'll get some insulation and cavity wall filling (probably can do this with anybody I guess). Also I'll get £50 "12 month bonus". A 20% increase is very high. I guess a long-term fix will be best but not sure how to compare that against current BG+20%.

I'm in the process of moving from BG Online Saver 4 to NPower Price Protector. I instigated this around 2 weeks ago. I used comparison sites (they all came back with virtually the same answer so in future I would probably only use one) and found that they were already reflecting the new BG prices even though those prices don't come into effect for a couple of weeks. I chose my fixed tariff and then had a look on Quidco to see if there was any good cashback available (there was) so did it via Quidco instead of the comparison site (I cleared my cookies first)

dekaspace · 2 August 2011 at 3:47PM

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

There is no one supplier with one best tariff for one person in any one energy use situation.

You only get the cheapest energy price by moving at least once a year and picking a company that has a combination of the lowest price at that time and the highest cashback on offer by starting your transfer through www.topcashback.co.uk or www.quidco.com

As long as the energy companies are allowed to only offer their cheapest tariffs to their newest customers but then leave you stuck with an expensive tariff by having tariffs generations 1 to 20 according to when you joined this crazy situation will continue.

My standing charge went up from 80p this time last year, to about £1.40 in winter to £1.80 now! and unit price has gone up by 4p per unit and standing charge by about 5p a day! not a lot but when I am a low usage person most of my cost goes on standing charges.

nizmo_2 · 3 August 2011 at 7:20PM

Hey all,

Wonder if any of you could advise me, we are due to move into a 2 bed flat at the end of the month, so am looking for a new supplier. There will be three people in the 2 bed, two being uni students, and one working full time. Me working full time will be out most of the day, same generally for other two people.

I was in a shared house last year, a 3 bed on a british gas standard duel fuel tariff. and during winter it wasnt cheap at all. So now I am looking to see what is going to be the best this time round, and maybe set it up before I move in!

Any reccomendations for a 2 bed flat ? Our usage will tend to be low, and we will have it that 1 or 2c below temp wise and just stick a jumper on! So whats generally the best tariff these days ?

sweeney · 12 August 2011 at 8:03PM

A couple of points that people might find helpful. Today I received a letter from E-on hiking their prices- I had only just joined them and was not best please at the size of the hikes. Their letter mentioned a chance to switch suppliers by 13th Sept but did NOT say a word about penalties. I rang them and learned that for some recent movers, they will levy penalties for moving but then make an ex-gratia payment equal to the penalty charges. Pity they can't be bothered to say in their letters. (I have had this confirmed for my circumstances in an email)
I tried a range of the quotation sites including U Switch, Energyline (?) and Simply Switch What was noticeable was that Simply Switch did NOT include many of the best deals that the others threw up. I seem to remember this the last time I had to go through this procedure. Why do they seem to suppress some results? Perhaps MSE should monitor them and, if they come to the same conclusions, add a WARNING about them.
Finally, why cannot all the fuel providers be forced to supply information about use in a way which makes it very easy to know what you are using and what you are spending. Information such as annual KwH is vital to getting a decent comparison but it can take an absolute age to obtain it, in dribs and drabs, from the suppliers. This lack of information must be one of the biggest impediments to switching. Come on MSE, put your weight behind a campaign for clear and complete information from suppliers- please. Ta

NonGeographicalMan · 12 August 2011 at 8:36PM

You might also want to give https://www.whichswitch.co.uk, https://www.saveonyourbills.co.uk and the https://www.moneysupermarket.co.uk Utilities comparison engine a try.

However give up any idea at the outset that you can switch to a permanently cheaper deal as they all lure you in with a super low initial tariff only to put the prices up on you by launching another newer tariff for subsequent new customers and then increasing prices for your tariff and all other older generation tariffs.

This despicable con ought to be made illegal by the regulator (i.e. all customers on a variable tariff paying by direct debit should get the same price and the price should not vary according to when you first joined the company) but sadly the regulator is a corrupt one that is staked full of people who formerly worked for the energy companies so cheerfully allows all these ripoff practices.:eek::mad::mad::mad:

immoral_angeluk · 16 August 2011 at 11:09AM

I'm another Eon customer and received my hikes letter the other day. Today I searched online and have managed to cut £400 off my annual bill going to Npower's price fix 2013 tariff PLUS £60 through quidco. New payment £35pm instead of £70 that eon were taking for gas/elec. (2 bed house with just myself and 2 young children. I work full time so fairly low usage).
Screw you and your hikes EON. I've been with Npower before and never had any problems and only moved to EON as it was cheaper last year.

twitterers · 17 August 2011 at 3:29PM

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

I'm another Eon customer and received my hikes letter the other day. Today I searched online and have managed to cut £400 off my annual bill going to Npower's price fix 2013 tariff PLUS £60 through quidco. New payment £35pm instead of £70 that eon were taking for gas/elec. (2 bed house with just myself and 2 young children. I work full time so fairly low usage).
Screw you and your hikes EON. I've been with Npower before and never had any problems and only moved to EON as it was cheaper last year.

Npowers tarfiffs seems very over complicated;
"PRICING NOTE FROM NPOWER:

npower prices are normally based on two rates: primary and secondary. The primary rate applies to a maximum of 4572 kWh (units) of gas and 728 kWh (units) of electricity that you may use throughout any continuous period of 12 months. Above this volume, npower charge at the secondary rate which is cheaper.

Primary rate gas is charged across the 12 months on a seasonally adjusted basis, with more primary rate units being charged in the winter months as follows:

Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb – 882 units charged at primary rate per month
Mar – 272 units charged at primary rate per month
Apr, Oct – 271 units charged at primary rate per month
May, June, July, Aug, Sep – 46 units charged at primary rate per month
Annual total – 4572 units charged at primary rate per month

Primary rate electricity is charged evenly through the year at a rate of 2 units per day."

I prefered the simple plan from Ovo;
Pricing Details
Breakdown
Gas Electricity
Standing charge
17.26 p per day (£63.00 per year)
18.12 p per day (£66.15 per year)

Unit charge (pence per kWh) 3.380 p 10.410 p

Which is fixed

katie07 · 24 August 2011 at 12:45PM

Hi all,

At the risk of repeating myself (sorry!), does anyone know how long it takes the Money Supermarket cashback to come through? I switched last month and have recently had the confirmation through from the new supplier that it's all going ahead (although slightly concerned that what I signed up for is different to the details they sent - will call them to check that!), but no Money Supermarket cheque as yet. I've never gone through the MSE cashback links so I have no clue how long I'm expected to wait!

Thanks in advance

moneymel53 · 24 August 2011 at 6:21PM

Be careful with comparison sites. having just received my new annual estimate plus price hikes letter I went to 4 different sites using actual figures for annual usage,tariffs etc in all 4 - All but money supermarket incorrectly calculated my bill from current supplier EBICO and showed several 'saving' alternatives which were all actually more than current supplier even with price increase when correctly calculated. Only 1 supplier Eon would save me about £40 But they haven't hiked yet so not really comparing like with like - So for now staying were I am. I'm no maths genius and its fairly simple to do the calculation so why are the other results so way out-one said that i could save over £100.00 - after all they make their money thru customers using their site to switch - makes you wonder ?

Old.Bonezee · 24 August 2011 at 8:55PM

I've been on an Economy 7 (E7) dual rate meter for 20 years since moving into my current house. But I ripped out the old storage heaters almost immediately and replaced with central heating.

So for years I've been on a Night & Day rate, on the assumption that I was getting a good deal as long as I tried to schedule washing machine & dishwasher to run at night, as well as the immersion heater in summer when the CH is off.

All the comparison sites ask if you have Economy 7, and some ask you to input the percentage of night-time use on the Low Rate. (Ours is about 25%).

So imagine my surprise when a cold call from an energy company revealed that I could be much better off switching to a single rate meter & tariff.

A kind lady at the Call Centre did some masterly calculations to work out my total kWH per annum, and compared the dual rate cost, assuming 25% at the low rate, with the single rate cost p.a.

Since the dual rate tariff costs much more during the day, and is indeed much cheaper at night, it seems that dual rate tariffs, such as E7, are only generally more cost effective if you use around 50% (or more) night time electricity.

Since we use most electricity during the day, I followed the recommendation, and converted to a single rate tariff, even though that meant changing my meter. The net saving can be significant (about £10 per month for us), and even though we were locked into an online tariff with EDF, the change to single rate was possible within the same tariff, so no penalty. AND THE COST OF A NEW METER? ZERO...£0... FOC..!!

So bingo!

You can work it out yourself by calculating the total kWH p.a. and try un-ticking the E7 box on the comparison sites, to see the comparitive cost of single rate tariffs. You can't get single rates and dual E7 rates on the same pages, but it's easy to try both methods.

Good luck MoneySavers!:money:

Energy: Find the cheapest supplier & earn cashback

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