Big Sport

[cranfan]

Is £45 the standard price for Big Sport, I'm not seeing any offer indicated? Presumably there is a risk that could go up during the 3 month period, and will go up anyway in March 2024 with the annual price rise. Although, as I understand it, the annual price rise will occur even in a 2 year contract.

What is the £41.99 in your illustration, is it free delivery now?

Do you have any experience of switching packages within My BT? I don't want to end up spending hours on the phone to switch it. 

[Brucemeister5]

The £41.99 is for activation of your service and p&p of your equipment. It’s being waived if you take up the current offer for Full Works. £45 is the current standard price for Big Sport. There is a risk that it could go up during the 3 month period, yes. However, it only recently increased from £43pm to £45pm on March 1st.

We have no experience of switching packages. We took up a really good offer when we took EETV in April 2022 and kept that package. We’ve just renewed with another really good offer on Full Works and have no intention of changing. There’s no need to phone to switch packages, it can be done online via MyBT.

[cranfan]

Thanks for all the feedback, it's very useful.

Aside from the annual increases, presumably some risk of Big Sport going up in price would apply throughout the remaining 21 months and would not apply if I purchased it directly on a 24 month contract.

I see what you mean about activation, I added Big Sport and it shows a £30 upfront charge, and with Full Works it's nothing.

As I want HD there would also be a saving of £18 (6x3) for 3 months of this, I believe it's inclusive with Full Works. But then I would need to add it when I switched, can that be done in My BT as well? I presume that 'via My BT' means on the website rather than the phone app?

So summing up, I don't generally watch the extra Entertainment channels much, so to me a saving of £60 + £30 + £11.99 + £18 = £120, versus the risk of price increases for Big Sport (plus HD add-on) and the hopefully minor inconvenience of switching package and adding HD (assuming that's possible) 3 months later.

[BillyM]

@cranfan I thought I should raise one issue  that hasn't been discussed so far. If you are on Full Works and want to swap package to Big Sport the option you will be offered is Big Sport + Netflix. This happened to be when I first joined BT back in 2021 and swapped from VIP (previous name of Full Works) to Big Sport. It wasn't an issue for me as I wanted Netflix anyway. I am now on Full Works and just checked my swap package options. The Big Sport Option is £53 (including Netflix). There is no option to swap to Big Sport without Netflix. Worth looking into this if you aren't interested in Netflix.

[cranfan]

Thanks.

I don't want Netflix, so over 21 months that's £168 extra. If that's the case, then it's no longer a viable option for me to switch between packages after 3 months.

With Big Sport, if I switched to just Sport for a few months, and then back, would Netflix also apply in that instance? If that's the case, then switching between any packages would never be viable for me.

[Brucemeister5]

@cranfan If you take Big Sport at £45pm plus HD/UHD add-on at £6pm the only price rises that will affect you will be the Annual 31st March rises, provided that you stay on that package. If say, Big Sport went up to £47 and HD/UHD add-on went up to £7pm during the course of your 24 month contract, that will not apply to you. 

However, if you swap between Big Sport and Sport you will not be forced to have Netflix as it was not part of the original package that you signed up to. Beware though, if you swap and the standard prices have changed as in the example that I gave above, then those prices will apply to you, although your HD/UHD add-on will still only be affected by the 31st March Annual increase.

[cranfan]

So summing up:

To avoid the Netflix issue my best option is to sign up for Big Sport directly (not via the Full Works offer).

If I decide during the contract to switch into Sport or Entertainment for a few months to save a bit, then I will have to accept any standard price increases when I return to Big Sport and hope that they will be less than the amount I saved by switching.

[cranfan]

This is now ordered and I'm waiting for delivery and activation.

As part of the BT order, for NOW TV I supplied my email address. Later, in response to an email from NOW, I validated my email address and that took me onto their website. I'm wondering if (and when/how) I need to create a password for use with NOW, this wasn't part of either process?

[Brucemeister5]

@cranfan  I’m assuming that you didn’t already have an account with NOW. I did, but wanted to keep that separate and not be taken over for our EETV NOW account. Did you use the  same email address that you use for your BT ID or something completely different? We used the same email as our BT ID for our BT NOW account. This means that it uses the same password for both, but it’s been over 2 years ago now, and I can’t remember how the process worked.

[cranfan]

I did once have a NOW account, but I suspect it became dormant long ago. I believe that account had the same password as I use with BT, but I'm not sure what email address I had at that time.

With the order, I gave the same email address for NOW as I use with BT. So maybe BT have forwarded my password to NOW or maybe the old account was reactivated.

When I validated my email with NOW, I wasn't prompted to set up a password but it did appear as though I was logged in. I'm reluctant to mess with it (on NOW's website) until I set up the TV Box when presumably I may need it.