If you’re a BT or EE customer, we have some bad news – your monthly bill will increase starting tomorrow (March 31, 2021). The price hike shouldn’t come as too much of a shock as BT began warning customers about two months ago. BT, owned by EE, will increase bills for landline, broadband, mobile and BT Sport subscribers.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to cancel a contract for the annual price increases during the contract period without charge unless you are within the first two weeks of your contract when you can cancel “no questions asked”. If you are outside of your minimum contract period, you can of course terminate your contract at any time without any fees, even before the last price increase occurs.
How much more do BT and EE customers have to pay?
BT uses the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to adjust the amount customers pay each month. Announced in January of each year, the CPI is designed to be a measure of whether the cost of goods and services is rising or falling across various industries in the UK. To do this, CPI takes a shopping cart (groceries, clothes, gasoline) and looks at what it cost last year, what it cost now, and calculates the difference. It is crucial that the CPI does not add the cost of your home to the shopping cart. Therefore, any increases in mortgage payments, rent and council tax are not taken into account in the new rate.
Each year BT takes the CPI inflation rate and then adds another 3.9 percent. Overall, that’s a 4.5 percent increase over what you’re already paying for every month.
For example, if your BT broadband bill costs around 40 euros per month, you need to save an additional 1.80 euros on each bill. That’s about 22 pounds more over the course of a year.
According to BT, this type of monthly increase will actually be pretty typical this year.
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BT told Express.co.uk that the average increase for customers would most likely be less than £ 2 a month – £ 24 a year. While this is not a huge amount of money, it is a very undesirable change for anyone affected by the migration. In addition to broadband, monthly telephone and landline customers who incur higher bills, some BT Sport subscribers will also be affected by the 4.5 percent increase. The latter affects everyone who watches this BT Sport content within the framework of a contractually agreed TV contract.
EE also uses the same calculation. In other words, the CPI hit an additional 3.9 percent. So if you pay 20 euros per month for your EE offer only for SIM cards at EE, you will be charged an additional 90 pence every month – or a total of 10.80 euros more over the course of the year until the next price increase.
If you currently have a mid-contract on an iPhone 12 Pro Max with 512GB of onboard storage, unlimited texts, minutes, and unlimited 5G data from EE, you can expect a much bigger increase. It currently charges a monthly rate of £ 113 per month. The new price is £ 118.08 per month. In other words, more than £ 60 extra this year.
Plusnet, also owned by BT, has not yet confirmed a price hike, but admits that monthly fees could be reviewed later in the year.
