Should I change tariffs?

@Firedog Can’t see the new tariffs, due to being over 55 days in contract.

I did use my card to pay some off last contract, but it wasnt credited so I asked for a refund…. Not sure why this was the case.. If any staff can chime in on to clarify why this was?

Maybe I should opt for the variable-rate next time? Are the standing charge fee’s more forgiving? I know that’s how suppliers make the money but.

🤷🏻‍♂️

Hey @PalsyP 

We can’t say what you should do about changing tariff and what would be best for you, but we can certainly clear up that you should always be able to make a one off card payment, no matter what your typical payment method is. 

So even if you are on Direct Debit, you can make an extra payment into the account anytime. As we don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum I can’t be entirely sure what went wrong here. but it’s possible that the payment didn’t reach the actual account and so didn’t reflect in the credit, but we can’t be sure here without access to the account.

I’ve linked to a handy topic on card payments that may be useful:

• Making a card payment on your online account or OVO app Tutorial

OK. There are other places to find them: 

• Visit ovoenergy.com in a private (incognito) browser window. Use the first Get a quote button to find the plans available in your postcode.
• Visit Our prices | OVO Energy to see all the plans available in your postcode. Use the filters to narrow down the search results; there will still be quite a few, but many of them will be the same. Ignore the plans with funny names - they only apply to specific classes of customer. In particular, see if you can find the Loyalty tariff.

The unit prices are attractive (10p cheaper), just hope they stay the same when my contract is near its end.

@Abby_OVO Do you allow card payments over the phone as well, so I can pay off the debit amount?

Hey @PalsyP 

Yes you can do it over the phone or over webchat too.🙂

https://www.ovoenergy.com/help/article/how-to-pay

That’s not guaranteed: these tariffs change quite frequently in response to wholesale energy market prices. 

See if you can find the Terms & conditions that apply to your current plan. Some of them have apparently changed in the last few days, so it’s not certain that the new ones apply to you, but it’s worth checking. The new ones for the 1-year fix state specifically that “If you change to another OVO fixed tariff you will not be charged a termination fee.” If this is the case, you might want to consider saving quite a bit by switching now rather than waiting until you get into the ‘renewal window’ seven weeks before the contract’s end date. 

I've been offered a new Fixed Rate Offer, the first is the new Tariff and the second is my current tariff.

I really don't know what to do🤷

Sorry, Lucky, but it’s not exactly clear which is your current tariff and which you’re being offered. Apart from that, we need to see both what the plans are called and, if your current plan is a fixed-rate one, when it ends. 

It looks from the middle screenshot as if you’re a medium sort of consumer, but at the lower end of those who have electric heating (the standing charge on this plan amounts to only about 10% of the total). We’d have to know what your peak rate and offpeak rate annual usage is to be able to do any calculations to help you. That unusually low standing charge is surprising - the price-capped standing charge is currently 50-60 p/day depending on where you live. And you have to be careful to note whether the rates you’re seeing include VAT or not. The ones in the middle picture do, but it’s not obvious whether the others do as well - I guess they don’t. 

So, a few more details would help. The online Plan page should give the information we need, apart from perhaps the day/night split in your annual consumption. To find that, you’d have to find the most recent bill and the corresponding one from a year ago, then note the meter readings on them. Subtract last year’s closing figures from this year’s to get the peak and offpeak usage.

@Firedog This is my current plan, it's the variable simpler energy economy 7 and this is with the VAT added

And this is the One that's been offered to my which also includes the VAT.

OK. What about the other things I asked about?

The only difference, then, is in the standing charge. There’s no way of knowing how this will change between now and a year hence, but we do know that for Standard Variable Tariffs (like Simpler Energy) it will remain more or less unchanged until 1 October. The offer you’re seeing would save you up to £76 a year in standing charges.

The unit costs are another matter completely. We’re going to see a fall next month, of about 9½% on average, but then rates are widely expected to rise again on 1 October, possibly by 15% or more. Time to dig out your crystal ball.  

Hi @Firedog is this what you were asking about ?

That helps! We can see that your usage over the past year has been:

Your offpeak usage was 2881.550/3954.500 = 73% of the total. This means that Economy 7 is working well for you, saving a lot when compared with what you would pay on a single-rate tariff.

The cost of fuel at current rates would be:

This is about what you would pay on the fixed-rate plan, but on the variable plan, it might be [£792/4 = £198 x 9.5% = ] £19 cheaper next quarter, but [£198 - £19 = £179 x 15% = ] £27 more expensive in the quarter after that. No-one has any real idea what the rates will be next year.

Meanwhile, the standing charge would be about [0.5045 - 0.2969 = 0.2076 x 365/4 = ] £19 cheaper per quarter for the fixed rate at least until 1 October. So you’d break even over the next quarter (July-September) and possibly start saving from 1 October onwards.

That depends, of course, on what happens with standing charges in the fourth quarter, and that’s what no-one has any idea about. There are moves afoot to have them reduced, but who for and by how much remains to be seen. The new government may well have something to say about it, since there will be considerable pressure on them to do something to help those who use least energy (particularly those who can’t afford to spend more) who are at most disadvantage from high standing charges. Any reduction will probably be loaded on to the unit price, in which case a fixed-rate tariff with a low standing charge may well be a good bet, because any such changes wouldn’t have any effect on it. 

The decision is yours. If you’d like the peace of mind that comes with knowing precisely how much you’ll be paying for the next year, fix. If you expect the fixed-rate tariff to work out cheaper over the year than the variable one, fix. If you suspect that the fixed-rate tariff will work out prohibitively more expensive, don’t fix.

And last: I fixed for a year last month, at a much higher standing charge than you’re currently being offered. Perhaps I should have waited a bit ...

Thank you @Firedog  you have given me a lot to think about, I think I will wait until the end of this month and  go from there

That’s the problem with attractive fixed-rate deals. It’s a bit like DFS sales, except that you don’t know when the sale will end. The next time you look, that tariff may well have gone away, usurped by another less favourable one. Then again, the replacement might be more favourable. You can never know, so you just have to gamble. It’s not easy to make predictions, especially about the future, but that’s what the people who work out these tariffs are doing all day. 

There is method in their madness, though. The number of customers allowed to take up an offer like the one you had is probably limited. Once the quota is filled, that’s it. The company know how much they stand to lose if the predictions were wrong, so they’re taking a gamble, too. It’s both swings and roundabouts for them, but for the customer, it’s really only one or the other. Make sure you get on the right ride!