This is normal during the weekends for both 18866 & 1899.

As you say they are over subscribed and obviously weekends are the busiest period for them as most people are off then.

Normally depending which landline provider you are with you can use them at weekends as most give you free weekend mins to 01 & 02 numbers included in the monthly line rental fee.

I discovered this over 6 months ago whilst waiting for our free evening&weekend package with onetel to start.  Until our free evening&weekend package had started we had to use Call18866 exclusively.

Now thanks to the Orchid dialler all our calls are routed via Call18866/1899 during the daytimes and during the evening & weekend its routed via OneTel.

Who is your landline provider and what package are you on?

Thanks you two.

I'm with BT on Tariff 1 @ £10.50 a month. What alternatives can you suggest. I live near to York if region matters.

TonyB

I agree with BigJohn.

Use Call1899 for daytime calls to geographical numbers 01 & 02.

Switch your call provider from BT to Planet Talk (link in previous post) and use this for evening & weekend free minutes with no monthly fee.  This will switch just your calls to planet talk automatically without the need to dial any override numbers.

You would still need to use override code 1899 when routing your daytime calls via Call1899.

You could get an Orchid Dialler to route your calls during the daytime automatically to Call1899, and route the calls during the evening & weekend via Planet Talk (ie CPS provider).  An Orchid dialler can be setup to route different type of calls depending on time of day, to practically any provider of your choice.

See this thread on MSE forum for 20% off an orchid dialler (if needed).