Dilemma

[new]

My 12 month contract for unlimited broadband and anytime calls end in December, however I have received an email offering me the same benefits that my present contract has if I contract again for another 12 months, and pay postage for a free Home Hub 4.  Copy of some of the wording below –

“All you need to do for us to send your free Home Hub 4 (usual cost £59) is to renew your broadband package with us for another 12 months. The only thing you'll pay is £6.95 for delivery. Any special offers on broadband you already have with us will continue on the same terms and end on the date you agreed with us.”

Now my existing deal for Unlimited 17mb broadband and calls is one I am pleased with, and I don’t really mind another year, but I don’t know if it is a year from now, or when my existing contract ends, and my advance line rental ends at the same time as my existing contract.  So would my new contract and line rental run from now, with a repayment of the remainder of my existing line rental payment, and could I rely on this being handled correctly I wonder.

My main dilemma though is that I have been waiting for my contract to end to see if I could get a good deal on Infinity as my exchange has recently been upgraded.  If I thought I could get a good Infinity deal I would wait to December and try, but if I thought no Infinity deal would be available, then another 12 months on my existing terms is not too bad.  Incidentally the Home Hub 4 would be no use as I already have a Home Hub 5 bought from the Internet.

[imjolly]

You can wait and then phone the options team on 0800800030 and then find out what you get offered if you renew your existing contract or upgrade to fibre. They are uk based

you are unlikely to get much of a deal upgrading to fibre but you may well get a good deal for staying on adsl/copper

[Ectophile]

The last sentence of the bit you quoted is the really important one.  If you agree to this deal, you will be locking yourself into a new 12 month contract, but any special offers you are currently on will expire when they are currently due to end - that is this December.  It is not saying that they will renew all your current offers for another year.

[umpire]

BT are trying to get you to tie in for another 12 months with most of that being on full price. The carrot is the free HH4, which you don't need, so just ignore that offer.

You don't actually have to wait until Dec to negotiate a new contract. Usually the Customer Options Team are happy to discuss things once you have 3 months or less remaining of your current contract minimum term. However you might consider yourself to be in a stronger negotiating position once the current minimum term has been completed. The downside is you might then end up paying full price for a bit until a new discounted (hopefully) contract is agreed.

[new]

Thank you Ectophile, I had read that last paragraph differntly thinking it meant extending my existing offers for another year.  I realise now that I was reading it wrongly.  It looks like the message was nothing more that a Hub offer!  Thanks again.


"Any special offers on broadband you already have with us will continue on the same terms and end on the date you agreed with us.”

[umpire]

They could certainly make it clearer by wording it a bit differently. They've used exactly the same 'trick' in the past when offering customers free or discounted BT Sport. Many customers only realised the hard way a few months later from their bills.

BT probably have a wish to gradually phase out dated equipment and products such as older HomeHubs. Such offers can help to achieve this. They might specifically target it at those who were originally sent earlier versions of HomeHub.

I read such letters as less offers and more BT asking if I wouldn't mind doing them a favour and replacing some old equipment. Maybe that's just me though. 🙂

[new]

If I had accepted this so called offer, which the email claimed was only being offered to selected customers, only to find that I had signed up to another 12 months just to get a Home Hub 4, which I don't want anyway, I would have been furious with myself for being so stupid. I must read emails from BT with more care in the future.