Wow. Thanks, suzie! It looks like I can haggle a bit, so. And the sales guy who rang me today
insisted that was no longer available and that
this was my only option (currently €42/month, plus that lovely "standalone" charge of €7.87/month for
not including the TV package). Yet there it is in black and white... well, blue and grey (my emphasis).
Q. I am an existing Home Phone Customer with Freetime World,If I order the Fibre Power Essential bundle will my Home Phone pack change.
A. No, in this instance existing customers who currently receive our Home phone with either the Freetime World or Anytime world call packs will continue to receive these services.
Mind you, I also had to twice challenge him when he insisted that 200 minutes/month was "the same as what you have". Very keen to apply the change there and then, for my greater convenience.
Their information is still riddled with inconsistencies, such as the description of the 100/200 Anytime packages, which they claim in literally the same breath to include:
...100 [or 200] minutes of free calls to mobiles and local, national and international fixed landline calls (excludes calls to mobile, premium rate, SMS and non geographic numbers) in selected 21 international destinations, standard rates apply thereafter.
But if I cancel my account and come back as a "new customer", I can choose between:
(a) four months at half-price, plus a €50 voucher for D.I.D. Electrical or Carphone Warehouse (by signing up online through Boards.ie — see
here), or
(b) sign up in-store at any branch of Carphone Warehouse, D.I.D Electrical, PC World, Currys or Michael Briscoe, and get a
€250 voucher to use in that store.
Whichever way I go, I'm going to be signing up to a new 12-month contract, so I'll just have to sit down and figure out what gives me the best return. Option A is notionally worth about €150, option B €250
(I'm going to need a new dishwasher soon, so I might go this route...). But both will mean relinquishing the unlimited calls to landlines — they obviously want to get people off that deal, rather like the old "free texts for life" deal Meteor killed off a few years ago.
I'll just have to have a look at our usage. Pity they only provide .pdf bills, not .csv spreadsheets like Meteor do; it makes it very tedious to tot up the figures — perhaps by design?
It was nice knowing the monthly bill was always going to be a flat €50-ish...