BT’s £240 blow for homes who pay landline upfront

BT is poised to scrap one of its flagship money-saving offers that could leave millions of customers £240 worse off each year.

The telecoms giant is abolishing its Line Rental Saver later this month, which gives people the option of saving money on their landline connection if they pay for a whole year upfront rather than monthly.

The offer, open to customers who opted for a bundle including landline and broadband, meant they would receive a £19.99 discount each month, equivalent to a free month of line rental if they paid £219.84.

But in an email sent to customers last month, BT announced it would pull the offer from sale on July 21, meaning those who have the discount will be unable to renew when their 12-month contract ends.

It also means they will effectively be paying an additional month’s worth of bills.

BT says the discount ‘no longer reflects the way we charge for our products’, emphasising that it has bundled the cost of line rental with its monthly broadband charges since 2019, rather than as a separate cost.

So, the firm concluded this would be ‘confusing’ for customers and decided to scrap Line Rental Saver. 

It says affected customers will receive a credit of at least £10 on their next bill.

The decision follows that of rivals like Virgin Media and Plusnet, which have scrapped similar schemes. This left BT as one of the only providers still offering the discount.

But the value of the deal has been steadily eroded by inflation and has not risen in line BT price hikes, with customers of the scheme still receiving the £19.99 discount despite bills rising by 14.4 per cent in the spring.

Natalie Hitchins, of consumer campaign group Which?, warns the end of this discount will be a blow to low income households that are already struggling due to the cost of living crisis. 

It is feared many will be older households who often rely on landlines for communication.

It comes amid upheaval at BT, which last month announced plans to slash up to 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade in a cost-cutting move. 

About 15,000 of these will come from the firm’s fibre broadband operation in which it has invested billions to expand the network across Britain.

BT said it would replace 10,000 staff, including many in customer services, with Artificial Intelligence.

This is despite only 51 per cent of landline and 55 per cent of broadband customers currently happy with BT’s handling of complaints, regulator Ofcom found.

calum.muirhead@dailymail.co.uk