I just happened to play around with Contact Energy dashboard and discovered they have a lower pricing for the same plan. Can someone on Good nights plan confirm?
Steps:
I suspect they've refreshed their rates recently, not sure if this is the same for other plans.
Yeah, they put up the unit price from 1/11 last year.
If you've been with them long enough, you might get a better pricing following the steps I mentioned.
Ah I misread. The new pricing is higher than what I'm currently on.
Interesting, my current rate is 31.1 /kWh. 90 daily charge
But going through your steps the rate to switch plan is showing as 30.2 / kWh and still 90c
I doesnt appear to be a inc / excl GST variance. And these are both low user rates.
I see they also have a new good weekends plan too. Free power 9-5 Sat and Sun and the rate at other times is only 23.3 / kWh, still with the same 90c daily. Half tempted to switch to that as it may suit the way we use power better and the much cheaper rate at other times is significant.
Great, that's what I'm seeing. Very interesting that they offer a lower pricing rate when pushing existing customers to a higher rate.
Thanks for this. Just changed from good nights open to good nights plan.
My variable rate will drop from 27.6c excl gst to 25.2c
Daily rate stayed the same at 90c.
That's really good rate, where are you based?
Christchurch
Interesting, good find. My rate changed from 24.8 down to 22.2 and daily rate dropped from 2.301 to 2.29 (high user)
Thanks this is interesting - my KWH rate would be 29c if I "changed" to this plan from the current 32c. Daily rate is 90c (Same)
I was going to "change plans" but I noticed if I did - my daily charge for gas would jump by 30c a day - which is weird and also doesnt match the price if I just signed up as a new customer. So I have messaged them instead - something to watch for if you also have gas.
So I got a response via their Whatsapp
Right, you are with those rates!
Sometimes the local network can decrease rates which may cause this to happen.
I have let our plan team know and they will review this for you over the next 5 business days and backdate the bills to the date these new rates took effect.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention!
So thats good I guess, seems a little dodge as clearly if this explanation is correct it will have happened to a lot of people and they seem to deal with it on a case by case basis. But I guess for me its sorted.
thanks for that. Somehow we were down as a high user so switched to the new plan and low user.
From 2.137 daily rate and 24.60. Now on .90 daily rate 30.2
So we will see how that works out.
We are regularly away so last bill charged 173 watts, uncharged (9-12) 140. Full month home the month before, charged 237 watts, uncharged (9-12) 229 watts.
Thanks for sharing OP,
My daily rate dropped to 23.7c kWh and my daily charge stayed the same at $1.208 / day (Christchurch).
I also did some calculations on standard vs low user, and with our power usage we are still better off on the standard rates.
Somehow for me the price is going up from 26.9 to 30.6. Daily charge is the same .90c without gst. I am Auckland based. Could be that the price reduced for SI.
Same here in Christchurch. I'll be getting an increase from 23.1c to 25.2c if I change to the same plan I'm on, same daily charge of 90c (all values ex GST).
Thanks again for sharing. Contact were good as their words and changed the rates backdated to when they changed.. this meant a credit so this month's bill including Gas was less than 10 bucks from hundreds so that's pretty nice. Thanks for pointing it out.
Took a while back and forth on WhatsApp, as every reply came from a different person and a couple clearly didn’t read the history correctly, but eventually they’ve agreed to do the same for me.
Warning to others: They love using emojis and talk like hipsters in their WhatsApp messages too 🤦♂️
Little victory - the recalculated bill, since 1 November, gave my $10 and change credit. It’s the principle though right… right?
What did you say to convince them to backdate it? They’ve declined to backdate mine but haven’t given a reason.
@isonala: Told them with an open plan I’d expect they’d write to me if wholesale costs went up and they were raising my rate accordingly. Equally, if costs drop I’d expect those savings to be passed on. But in this case they have dropped the rate but continued billing me at the higher amount, so i’d expect that to be corrected back to the date the rate dropped.
I'm seeing an increase too, but unsure whether it has taken effect on my account. Will have to monitor the next statement which isn't due until later in the month.