Are there any energy companies still accepting Amex?

[Barraclough]

Is anyone aware of energy companies still accepting payment by Amex? Igloo and Octopus did so but with their demise and the transfer of their energy accounts to the big players there seems much less payment choice.

I could use MasterCard but prefer to stick to AmEx if at all possible. I realise there are other factors for selecting a supplier, including if course the customer care record, but it would be good to know of any energy companies who do still accept American Express.

[Rui N.]

Octopus is still around. Bulb was the one that went bankrupt.
That said, Octopus are not accepting new customers (at least they didn’t accept me!).

[Rich_A]

Bulb is still going – in special administration, but still going. And Octopus certainly hasn’t demised!

I’m with both Octopus and Bulb, and they both accept Amex. However I think the previous game of topping up by Amex and then refunding by BACS has ended.

I think you can switch to Octopus, but only by phone now. They will try to put you off – mainly because they’re still losing money at the price-cap, so they’re not exactly keen on new customers!

[George K]

EDF

[Barraclough]

Thanks for the comments and correcting me as regards Octopus. I got transferred to e-On last year when Igloo collapsed but hopefully later this year it may be possible and worthwhile to transfer to a supplier who accepts Amex top ups to a Direct Debit.

[rum]

EDF still take it as far as I know

[Rob]

Apparently we all get a £10 surcharge on our bills next year to cover the £200 million of advance payments which now-bankrupt suppliers took and spent. The money is recouped by a levy on everyone.

[NorthernLass]

£10 isn’t too bad, especially as I also read that households in council tax bands A – D will get a £150 rebate. Happily I challenged our band E status a few years ago and got it moved down a band plus a healthy refund of the overpaid council tax!

[Harrier25]

NorthernLass wrote:

£10 isn’t too bad, especially as I also read that households in council tax bands A – D will get a £150 rebate. Happily I challenged our band E status a few years ago and got it moved down a band plus a healthy refund of the overpaid council tax!

Oh, the advantages of living up North! 😂

[Rui N.]

I tried to challenge my band E assessment a few years back, providing evidence of more than 25 properties within a couple miles of mine that were either much more expensive, much larger, or both, than mine and were in lower bands (I found one in band B).
Their response, paraphrased: “our assessment for your property is correct, if there are any similar or higher-spec properties around you that are in lower bands, it’s because they are incorrectly assessed”. Can’t argue with that logic!

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[CarpalTravel]

Rui N. wrote:

I tried to challenge my band E assessment a few years back, providing evidence of more than 25 properties within a couple miles of mine that were either much more expensive, much larger, or both, than mine and were in lower bands (I found one in band B).
Their response, paraphrased: “our assessment for your property is correct, if there are any similar or higher-spec properties around you that are in lower bands, it’s because they are incorrectly assessed”. Can’t argue with that logic!

Truly one of the most frustrating processes I have bothered with. I spent ages researching properties in my vicinity, their sold prices through the ages, situation, format (semi, detached etc..) and presented it clearly demonstrating that my neighbours either side who were 2 bands lower were inline with all the others in the area and that mine was the anomaly. They replied stating that my sq.ft was significantly higher than the other properties thus the banding was correct, all whilst acknowledging that my double garage is integral. My neighbours plots are both twice the size of mine and as a result their double garages are detached from the main property, so were excluded from the calculations.

It’s maddening, it is like trying to convince a mugger that they should at least leave you with a fiver before taking your wallet (for a cab home), watch and phone. They are not interested in anything that would lessen their takings.

Sorry for the off topic rant.

[Rui N.]

I agree completely. In my case they also said they ignored bungalows (I listed 3 or 4), because they were “not houses”, despite one of them having been sold for over £2 million (more than 5x the value of my house) a couple of years prior to my house being bought and also having several times the built area of mine.
The argument was also quite silly, they gave the overall assessment mentioned in my previous post, and then decided to highlight that bungalows shouldn’t be included in the comparison, but never actually made any comparison.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Alan TJ]

Outfoxthemarket still is.

However, I doubt you could join on the price capped rate and the 1yr fix quote is £3330 for an average house.

[SteveJ]

rum wrote:

EDF still take it as far as I know

Doesn’t look like EDF allow you to switch to them on the price cap tariff as far as I can tell?

So the real questions for me are:

A) Any providers accepting Amex AND allowing you to switch onto their variable (price cap) tariff?

And if so;
B) Which of those allow minimising (or even eliminating) the DD when making card payments?

[Rui N.]

I’ve checked EDF and came to the same conclusion.
Cheapest tariff was a 2-year deal with £200 exit fees, and the prices were around double of the current price cap.

I’d be interested in knowing the answers to those questions as well. Since I’m on the price cap tariff, might as well change to one provider where I can pay with Amex.

[Barraclough]

Just wondering if anyone has any updates on fixed dual energy contracts where payment by AmEx is allowed? I’m hoping there will be some comparable ones to the (non Amex) E-on 12 months V12 fixed tariff which Martin Lewis of moneysavingexpert.com recently highlighted.

[ffwd]

Octopus are refunding me back to my cancelled amex.

[AJA]

I moved house in mid Feb and Octopus are the energy provider at my new address so I just signed up with them. Significantly more expensive than I was paying but I did have a 1 year fix with Sainsburys Energy which was due to expire this month anyway and their renewal offer was even more expensive.

Glad to hear Octopus still accepts Amex – that will go a little way towards softening the blow of increased prices.

[Charles Martel]

If all energy companies are bound by the cap on variable rate tariffs is choosing provider by payments type or other trivial benefits (like additional Nectar points) the only point of differentiation? Not that it seems possible to swap at the moment, very few suppliers seem to offer quotes and only invite you to call to sign up at the moment.

[gbdavid]

If you are still in a special tariff with EDF (i.e. where you need to pay by Direct Debit to comply with the terms of your Tariff), you have to ask EDF to change your direct debit to ‘Whole Amount Monthly’, this means that at the end of each month cycle you will be billed the full amount, and after you pay you will owe nothing and carry nothing moving forward.

After you made this change, go to payments and use your Amex to make a manual credit card payment with it. You need to make sure you overpay in advance before your next billing cycle. This way you will have a carry amount loaded into your account from your Amex and they will not deduct any amount by direct debit. Continue doing this every month in advance and you will effectively be paying by Amex 100% of your EDF bills.

[Alan TJ]

I have just topped up our Outfoxthemarket account with Amex to hit my wife’s spending target for her 70,000 introductory bonus.

[Molly]

gbdavid wrote:

If you are still in a special tariff with EDF (i.e. where you need to pay by Direct Debit to comply with the terms of your Tariff), you have to ask EDF to change your direct debit to ‘Whole Amount Monthly’, this means that at the end of each month cycle you will be billed the full amount, and after you pay you will owe nothing and carry nothing moving forward.

After you made this change, go to payments and use your Amex to make a manual credit card payment with it. You need to make sure you overpay in advance before your next billing cycle. This way you will have a carry amount loaded into your account from your Amex and they will not deduct any amount by direct debit. Continue doing this every month in advance and you will effectively be paying by Amex 100% of your EDF bills.

Looking for advice on paying EDF by credit card. My direct debit was £274 due on the 04/05/22 so I paid £275 on the 26/04/22 using my Barclaycard. The payment was processed no problem so I expected my DD to reduce to zero? On the 04/05 EDF took the full amount via DD of £274? My account shows my next DD as 04/06 for £219? How to ensure my direct debit reduces completely to zero?

[NorthernLass]

@Molly – is there any option in your online account to reduce your DD? They will still take the full amount unless you change it, and may require you to be a certain amount in credit before they agree to a reduction. Otherwise you will probably have to contact them by phone or chat to negotiate it. You could cancel the DD altogether but this is likely to cause them to start chasing you to set it up again unless you have a lot of credit on the account, and it may be a condition of any discounts or special terms you get. This is the case with OVO, anyway. I tend to keep the account in credit by at least £1000 and reduced my DD to £5 pm by doing that.

[Froggee]

@Molly EDF are a bit weird. I asked about being able to reduce the direct debit and was told they don’t like to do this as the tariff is dependent on paying by direct debit.

So I paid £1,000 on Amex and my direct debit fell from £269 to £169. The next month I paid another £1,000 and the direct debit fell to £69. I figured I’d leave it there but they will probably be putting it up again at some point as £269 a month won’t cover our bills.

This is in the standard variable rate.

When I was on a fixed tariff with EDF, any overpayment I made seemed to change nothing. I just built up a credit on my account and then they made two refunds (with zero communication) – one to my bank account (good) but then a second, larger one to the Amex I used to pay (bad)

So my instinct is that if you’re on a fixed tariff it might be more tricky.

For what it’s worth I don’t have a smart meter so don’t think I have the option of paying the full bill every month.

[Molly]

I’m on the Welcome Variable tariff since Utility Point went bust. There is an option to apply for a direct debit reduction (I’m current £700 in credit) so may give that a go. @gbdavid mentioned effectively reducing the DD to zero, not sure this is possible without building a large credit balance.