My aunt is currently out of contract and has a Halo package. She wants to pay less for Broadband but as an existing customer there is no option for her to downgrade to Fibre Essential. As a Halo customer (with Anytime calls) the cheapest deal I can get her is £62-49 a month but if it was downgraded to Fibre Essential with Anytime calls it comes in at about £48 per month. BT won't let her do this. As a loyal customer I find this very strange. I am thinking of moving her to another supplier simply because BT don't seem to want her as a customer anymore on a cheaper contract.
Why? - corporate greed.
From the many similar posts on this forum I'd agree with your assessment that BT only want your aunt as a customer as long as they can milk her for every penny. So I'd make the move elsewhere, not that BT will care.
The excellent Mods have taken up some cases, so you may get lucky if you want to persevere with it. But does your aunt really want to continue doing business with a company that views her & so many others with such contempt?
The only issue may be keeping her phone number, especially if she has a lot of contacts who know her number.
does your aunt qualify here https://www.bt.com/exp/broadband/home-essentials?s_cid=con_bt_dg-home_awin_aff_vidAJM_110483-Editori...
the plan costs are https://community.bt.com/t5/Bills-Packages/Bad-customer-service/m-p/2330514?lightbox-message-images-...
Nobody is supplying conventional phone lines coming direct from the telephone exchange any more. Anyone moving provider or renewing their contract, will have to carry their calls over their broadband connection, using equipment supplied by their ISP.
See https://landlinesgo.digital/
Although the risk of losing her phone number now when moving also has to be considered along with the risk of losing her phone number or entire phone service when BT migrate her to Digital Voice, as seen on many, many instances reported here.
The reality is that losing her number by moving to another supplier carries about the same risk as BT cocking it up all by themselves at a later date.
My aunt is currently out of contract and has a Halo package. She wants to pay less for Broadband but as an existing customer there is no option for her to downgrade to Fibre Essential. As a Halo customer (with Anytime calls) the cheapest deal I can get her is £62-49 a month but if it was downgraded to Fibre Essential with Anytime calls it comes in at about £48 per month. BT won't let her do this. As a loyal customer I find this very strange. I am thinking of moving her to another supplier simply because BT don't seem to want her as a customer anymore on a cheaper contract.
When you say ‘BT won’t let her do this’ are you referring to the online ordering system? Because yes, that is set up only to let you renew or take new contracts at a higher price point.
If you are out of contract and want a cheaper deal this is possible, but you need to run the gauntlet of the call centre ‘guides’.
Prepare yourself to get cut off a few times when they realise you are going for a downgrade. Just persist by stating you are out of contract, and that Halo guaranteed you the same prices on renewal as a new customer (I was informed at one point this only applies to ‘new Halo deals’ despite the fact this is not mentioned anywhere in BTs documentation). Have the detail of the ‘new customer deal’ you want, as taken from the website, to hand.
Hopefully you will eventually get an agent who will build the new package and put it through for you. I got a significant reduction in price and a faster full fibre connection by persisting.
as you have tried a few time with CS and getting nowhere I have asked a mod to see if they can help you get package sorted they will post here