Contract Renewal

[northshields]

Yesterday I received an email from BT inviting me to renew my BTTV contract (which expires in April) at a concessionary price of £8 and some pence instead of the usual £20. I took just 24 hours to think about it, but when I go back to the site today (using the same link) I could only renew at £20, which I certainly wouldn't do.

There was no suggestion in the email that the offer was only being made for a very short period. Is this really a reasonable way to treat existing customers or am I missing something?

[Brucemeister5]

We’re in a similar position with our contract up in April too. Every time I check MyBT, the cost of renewal for the Entertainment pack varies between £8, £12, £15 or £20 ( standard price).  We have offers of £35 for Big Sport or £60 for Full works which never vary, and no offers at all on Big Entertaniment or Sport other than standard price. 

[northshields]

Brucemeister5

That's interesting. I am beginning to think that it is because the BT systems are up the spout. My offer page looks like this

As you can see, the box for TV offers is completely blank and clicking on "Find out more" does nothing at all.

[Brucemeister5]

I got a text for renewal of tv and the link for the tv offer on MyBT doesn’t load either like yours. The only way to look at the offers is by going to change package. Very odd. I’m not in any rush. It’s an important decision that I’m still weighing up.

[Ric81]

I’m in a similar position with my contract ending in early April. I’m seeing the same deals as @Brucemeister5 noted above, although entertainment hasn’t shifted from £12 pm for me. 

Of course the issue with renewing now is that I’ll be hit with a 7.9% increase from 31 march so don’t see much incentive to rush into anything - I think I’ll wait until march if indeed I do renew at all. 

ps having just checked my offers this morning I now get the message that BT unable to show me any deals.  

[Brucemeister5]

@Ric81  Our contract ends on 7th April. We’ll be hit with the 7.9% rise on 31st March anyway. If we don’t re-new until the end of the contract I’m assuming that we will move to the new method of price rises that was announced by Marc Allera a couple of days ago. I’m still keeping our options open for as long as possible. 

[Ric81]

@Brucemeister5  Indeed. Just making the point that the current offers of £35 and £60 for Big Sport and the Full Works respectively, are arguably a bit misleading because before you know it you’re paying c. £37.50 and £65. 

Like you I’m in no rush (contract ends 4 April). If I do renew I’ll wait to until after 1 March and evaluate the offers then as, if I understand correctly, renewing after that point won’t see a price increase until 31 March 2025 (which as you say will be on the new basis). 

However, I suspect the chances are I won’t renew (TV at least) and just go direct to Now TV and take advantage of the increased flexibility / regular offers. If the new EE TV Apple TV 4K option had supported multicast streams then there would have been more reason to stay with BT/EE. 

[Brucemeister5]

@Ric81  Agreed. The offers for Full Works & Big Sport are very good, but not if you’re hit with an almost immediate price rise. Both of those offers are better than I could achieve by buying direct. They are also protected against individual price rises for each component other than the annual BT/EE one. There’s also the HBO content factor to take into account after Sky’s exclusive deal ends. Presumably the Full Works package would still contain HBO content in any event.

[northshields]

Just by way of an update, two days ago my renewal price was £8, yesterday it was £20, this morning it was £12 and this evening it was £20 again.

It seems an extraordinary way to run a business. In fact, I doubt that it can be explained by anything other than incompetence - or, perhaps by allowing an automated system to do its own thing.