Hi all,

I've being paying BT using their "monthly payment plan" scheme for a couple of years now. Earlier in the year I started paying for my BT broadband service the same way and BT recommended a monthly payment of £50 for everything, with the broadband costing £25 and the telephone line/calls costing £25 which I thought was just about acceptable.

We've made a few more calls recently, but not a huge amount, now BT are telling me that my monthly payment is increasing to £75 - which means £25 for the broadband and £50 for the telephone line/calls every month which seems like a lot to me. There are a few extras like the BT 1571 with personal greeting and BT Broadband Talk that I pay for (and to be honest haven't used) but that still shouldn't equate to £50 per month.

My question is, is there anything I can do to get better value for money with regards to the line rental/calls part of the
bill?

I'm on BT Together Option 1 at the moment and most of the calls seem to be made during the daytime, so the evening/weekend options won't benefit me. Also, most of the calls seem to be either to mobiles or national/local rate numbers, rather than geographical local numbers, that is, calls to people in my local area.

If they want to charge me £75 per month, I've been looking at the BT Fusion package which would suit me quite well and I should save money provided that I can lower the line rental etc. on the landline as with BT Fusion the line rental still needs to be paid even though BT Fusion doesn't use the landline.

Any ideas/comments gratefully appriciated.

Cheers,

Steve.

Hello Steve.

I'd suggest a number of things.

(1). Change to Whole Bill Direct Debit (I'm on quarterly but I think they do monthly as well) so that, although line rental is paid in advance, calls are paid in arrears and you only pay for calls you have made, not for calls you may make).

(2). Sign up online for a 18185 account so, using that prefix, you can make your weekday 6am to 6pm UK 01/02/03 calls for 5p each, regardless of duration. 18185 is also far cheaper than BT for calls to UK mobiles (5p connection + 6p/minute during the week, 3p/minute at weekends);

(3). Sign up for Primus Saver Option 2 as your CPS (Carrier PreSelect) calls provider. For no cost, that'll give you free evening and weekend UK 01/02 calls of up to 90 minutes. Yes, I know you said E&W calls aren't your thing - but you lose nothing this way!

(4). With Primus Saver Option 2, you can also ask for the free add-on Penny Mobile 2 as well (I have a PDF about the Penny Mobile 2 add-on - PM me an e-mail address if you'd like me to send it to you). That gives you calls to UK mobiles capped at 20p for up to 20 minutes. Although, for short calls, 18185 would still be cheaper (see above), a fixed rate of 20p is a bargain if you know your call is going to be longer - but no longer than 20 minutes!

(5). With regard to 0845 & 0870 calls, the obvious is to suggest you use SayNoTo0870.com to find geographical alternatives. Failing that, consider who you use for making such calls - sometimes BT will be cheaper but, more often, 18185 is (see HERE).

I regularly update my '6-steps' to reducing costs for BT residential landline subscribers page on the Money Saving Expert site - so that might be worth the occasional look too.