BT mobile change of plans but won' allow to keep old number.

[RoMo5]

I was persuaded by an advisor to change my BT mobile plan to another BT mobile plan. I was sent a new SIM card but when I followed the instructions to keep my old number by texting PAC to 65075 I got the following answer "Hello, BT here. You asked for a switching code to move to another provider. As your number is part of an account with multiple numbers, we can't deal with this via text. Please call 03301234150"  On getting through to an advisor it appears there is no way to transfer your old number from a BT plan to a new BT plan yet it would have been possible if I had been with another provider. That seems unbelievable. Anyone else had this problem or got round it.

[imjolly]

You could try phoning CS again and hopefully get a better informed advisor.  I have asked forum mods if there is anything they can do to help  they will post here

[RoMo5]

Thanks for your advice. I've already cancelled the new plan under the 14 day rule.

[Debbie_G · Accepted solution]

Hi @RoMo5.

Welcome to the community

I'm sorry to hear you've had difficulty keeping your existing number when changing your mobile plan.

I appreciate you've now cancelled the new plan under the 14-day cooling-off period. If you need any further help, please get in touch with our customer support team. They'll be able to discuss the options available to you and provide further advice.

Debbie

[RoMo5]

Thank you.

[Colin_London]

@Debbie_G But what the poster has been told is correct isn’t it - you have no way to move people from legacy mobile plans to your new plans whilst keeping their number.

[Kimberlin]

If it is indeed true, it would be interested to know BT’s reasoning behind it.

Perhaps the OP should consider porting their number to a new provider even if it means moving all of the other associated numbers too. I guess it all depends on whether the OP thinks they’re getting good value or whether they have the will to go elsewhere.

[Colin_London]

It’s probably a system issue that nobody thinks is worthwhile fixing - eg. legacy plans are on an old system. New plans are on a new system. And there is no way to port between the two.

[StewM]

I have renewed my contracts with BT at the end of July as my contract was due to expire later this year for TV, Broadband, phone and I received an offer to renew cheaper than I was paying and a discount on the new mobile contracts.

While I had an offer to renew Broadband & TV online, the offer was to take a new sim for my two mobiles which had been out of contract since 2023. I phoned CS and they placed the order to renew my TV, broadband and mobile, keeping my existing sim and mobile number. The only problem was that they renewed one mobile contract on the day the second on the following day.

So it was possible in my case, was I lucky getting CS staff who knew what they were doing or is it dependant on what time of sim I had?

Stew