When does new contract start when renewing

[#1]

I rang up to discuss a new contract a week ago coincidentally on my bill date.  My current/old contract expires on 15/1/20.   I was doing this as I am due to renew my line rental saver.  Having received an acceptable offer I asked if it would start at the end of my current contract and was told yes so accepted.  When the details came through I checked online in ‘Manage Account/Account Summary’ and found that my old contract had been written off and new contract started immediately.  The new contract is on less favourable terms than the old one and so I have lost two months of the old contract.  If I had been told this would happen I would have considered delaying my renewal but when I asked if it started at the end of my old contract I was told yes.

I raised this issue by commenting on the ticket for the new contract.  No response after a week so I raised a separate ticket to highlight the issue in case commenting was not being monitored or a priority.  Details said up to 5 days to respond – my past experience is normally less than this.

So what is normal?  Does renewing before the end of contract terminate the old/current contract?

Just to make the experience worse – when I started my ‘favourable contract’ it was on better terms than the previous one but started a few days into my billing month which I had already paid for so I lost nearly a month at the start.  That means in effect I will only have benefitted 9 months of that 12 month contract.  Further to that, at the last change I kept being billed for line rental despite having line rental saver; I had to keep ringing up to get a refund until fudged; billing system now seems fixed.

All this doesn’t leave me with a good feeling about Plusnet who I have been with for years.  I wouldn’t say Plusnet are perfect but they have always been fair and sorted out any problems.

To repeat my earlier question at the end of my post –

So what is normal?  Does renewing before the end of contract terminate the old/current contract?  If so did the customer service person misunderstand my question because it was not what they expected me to ask and I got a yes when it should have been no.  I do not remember when the details were being reeled off at the end of the call there being anything about start date.  Is that correct?

Thanks for reading to the end of my story.

Phil

[#2]

@wphil 

When I renewed my contract I was told that it would start on my next billing date. Luckily for me I did the deal one day into my last contract month.

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for getting in touch @wphil

As mentioned above, if you take out a new contract this will take effect on your next billing date and overwrite the current contract you had in place

You are still within your cooling off period so if you call us on 0800 013 2623 we can revert your contract back to your previous deal and then call us once that one has finished.

[#4]

This answers my question, thankyou. 

So I will accept as fixed but pursue my dissatisfaction about the renewal process via the ticket I have.

[#5]

Prices go up on December 3rd for most people.