@Clarkatron - Sorry for the late reply, I've only just seen your question in my thread.
Yes, I'm afraid my Home Phone Saver Plan went up to £22.86 per month (on 31st March). Before that it had always been £21.99 per month, since my first bill in April 2019. However, unlike you, I did receive a letter from BT about a month before the change, informing me of the price increase. Are you set up for email communications from BT? If so, it might have gone into your Junk folder.
I see that BT's (well-hidden) Home Phone Saver Plan page still gives the price at £21.99. However, the Tariff Guide gives the new price, as does the Landline Deals page (at the bottom, under Important information > BT Home Phone).
There have been a few different versions of Home Phone Saver since its launch in August 2014. The original iteration (withdrawn from sale on 6th June 2015) was called 'Home Phone Saver 2017', was priced at £19.99 per month (guaranteed until 2017) and had fewer features than the current one. My parents are still on that original plan and their price had remained constant at £19.99 per month, until 31st March this year (they, like me, received a letter notifying them of a price increase - to £20.78 in their case).
The current Home Phone Saver was launched in April 2017, priced at £21.99 per month, and was originally called 'Home Phone Saver 2020' - this guaranteed that the price would remain the same until 2020. After 2020 came and went, the price stayed the same at £21.99 and the package was renamed 'Home Phone Saver Plan'. I never thought it was guaranteed to stay at £21.99 forever; however, my understanding was that it was essentially an inflation-proof plan, excluded from BT's automatic annual price increases (which are calculated via CPI rate of inflation - currently 4% - plus an additional 3.9%). In the case of Home Phone Saver only the CPI rate of 4% has been applied with this increase (and rounded down to the nearest penny), so I guess we must be thankful for that. However, the timing of the rise is no coincidence and it looks like it will go up every March from now on.
The following link explains it and I think is similar to the letter I received in late February/early March:
BT Annual Price Change | Consumer Price Index (CPI) | BT
I guess it could be argued that we've been getting a great deal for several years and it's time for us to pay a little more. But it seems a bit unfair when you consider that Home Phone Saver is now the only BT plan on sale that doesn't include calls to UK mobile phone numbers (except BT Mobiles), and also that charged calls still carry a 'call set-up fee' (abolished on other plans). It does, however, have no monthly minutes cap - unlike most of BT's current calling plans (just a per call limit of 60 minutes, which I prefer as it's much easier to keep track of individual call lengths than monthly minutes).
Home Phone Saver was introduced to give some value to phone-only customers, who have been receiving poor value for money in recent years, compared to those who bundle with Broadband, TV or Sport. But with Asda Mobile now offering a monthly 'Talk and Text' bundle for just £4 per month, nearly £23 for 'voice only' landline still seems high.
Most of the (normally expensive) calling features that come free with Home Phone Saver will cease to exist upon migration to Digital Voice (and most of those that remain will be free on DV anyway - the exception being Call Barring), so I predict that one of two things will happen: either Home Phone Saver customers will be offered inclusive calls to UK mobiles, in line with BT's other plans, or Home Phone Saver will be discontinued and its customers migrated to Line Rental with Line Rental Plus and Line Only Discount, plus a Calling Plan (customers with such a set-up have always paid more each year, due to the automatic increase on Line Rental and Calling Plan prices). I'll be sorry to see Home Phone Saver go, not least because its single monthly price is so much easier to understand than the complicated set-up of individual components stated above. Losing the benefits of landline telephone, such as reliable sound quality (on a corded phone), constant power and useful calling features, will make the service no better than mobile in my opinion, so I may just ditch it altogether once Digital Voice comes in for me.
