Boots tell me they will be changing to 0345, from 0845 0708090, on 1st June in compliance with legislation.   

They have not made a public announcement yet but one may be made soon.

The Boots 0345 number  mentioned by Loddon in his original post is now working in tandem with the old 0845 number.

CJT-80 wrote on May 18^th, 2014 at 4:37pm:


The companies who have changed early like Tesco seem to have changed all their contact numbers.  However I suspect that is only becayse the issue has been reviewed at board level and they don't wish to get caught out between what is a customer service number or a sales number for instance.

However I fully expect that those deliberately waiting till the last day like Ticketmaster will only do the minimum and will probably list a customer service line separately from a ticket sales line and then be very strict that they will only talk to customers on the 03 line about tickets already purchased and not about tickets they are thinking of purchasing.

Ticketmaster have been one of the most relentless and hardcore users of 0844 who have persistently blocked any geographic alternatives that have been found including the 0141 alternative number for the Glasgow 2014 from any call they deem to be UK originated (even if your number is withheld).

I strongly expect these kind of operators to continue to have 0844 numbers for all contacts lines not deemed as being customer service.

While it is good news that they have changed to 03 numbers, it would be helpful if they told their staff!   I was told by a member of staff in the Cheltenham branch this morning that I needed to call 0845 for Advantage card info, I queried this & he knew nothing of any change.  When I called the 03 number for Advantage card, I mentioned this to the girl who answered who said she thought "it had changed overnight", I pointed out that this information had been available for some days, she agreed to pass this on the whoever is in charge.  However, it really isn't good enough that customers are still being given incorrect (& expensive misinformation), thank goodness for this forum.

With 17.8 million Advantage Cards in circulation, with the 0845 numbers printed on the back, Boots won't be able to switch them off any time soon...

If BT simply allowed mobile phone operators to make 0845/70 inclusive, as they (presumably) do for rival landline providers, none of this switchover nonsense would be necessary in the first place, right?

I didn't say that they shouldn't. I said that BT chose to make them inclusive within call packages a few years ago and its rival landline providers followed. I just wondered why the mobile operators didn't do the same, and assume it's because BT won't let them.

Trenod wrote on Jun 20^th, 2014 at 11:16pm:


When you call an 0845 number, your provider has to pay about 2p/min to the telecoms company that is running the 0845 number on behalf of the business that you called. This payment is the "enhanced termination charge" and it is paid by the "originating communications provider" to the "terminating communications provider".

This money is used by the TCP to pay for the running costs of the technical features of the 0845 number and to route the call to its eventual destination on a normal landline or mobile phone. This is why you often see 0845 numbers advertised to businesses who might adopt them, as having no monthly bill for usage - callers are paying those costs.

You're right that BT is somehow involved.

BT is the largest terminating provider of 0845 numbers. Vodafone is the second largest through their acquisition of Cable & Wireless. Other providers account for a much smaller slice of the terminating market, perhaps only a single digit percentage, at best, for each.

When a caller uses the BT network to make a call, most of the calls terminate within the BT network. It's therefore relatively rare for BT to have to pay out 2p/min to some other provider.

On the other hand, when a caller makes a call to an 0845 number from some other network, or from a mobile phone, there's a very good chance that the call will terminate on the BT network. The provider will have to pay the 2p/min termination charge to BT.

So, BT very often collects money for 0845 calls, but rarely has to pay out to other providers. For BT subscribers with inclusive calls, BT has chosen to fund the payments to other providers from the monthly subscriptions collected from all BT subscribers rather than charging the individual caller who made the call.

Some providers do not control any of the 0845 numbers in use. This means every call made to an 0845 number from their network results in a 2p/min payout to the provider controlling the number. This quickly eats into the monthly subscription paid by the caller. Most of these payments are going to BT or to Vodafone.

In comparison, the termination charge for 01 and 02 calls is much less than 0.1p/min. A large number of calls made to geographic numbers controlled by other providers barely eats into the monthly subscription.

The result is that it is only BT that can really afford to discount calls to 0845 numbers. Some other landline providers copy BT's retail call price but are effectively losing money on every call made - or have had to inflate the price of the monthly call plan in order to recover the money that has to be paid out to other providers.

This may also explain why Vodafone chooses to charge 0845 calls at a slightly lower rate than calls to 01, 02 and 03 numbers on some of their pay as you go tariffs. However, Vodafone doesn't offer inclusive 0845 calls in their standard contract deals, as it would push up the monthly subscription.

Several networks, including Vodafone, offer inclusive 0845 calls if you pay for an extra bundle. Several landline networks include 0845 calls if you subscribe to one of their more expensive call plans. All of this call pricing is non-transparent. Many people expect 0845 calls to be "cheap". Many businesses continue to claim that calls to their 0845 number are "charged at the local rate" even though this has not been true since 2004.

Ofcom's unbundled tariffs system coming into effect on 26 June 2015 will shine a light onto these tariffs. It will become clear that 0845 calls are not normally cheap. The current pricing structure is all based on an illusion created by the fact that BT's call prices vary from everyone else. BT's market position in call termination has allowed them to discount the retail cost of these calls where no other provider can really afford to do so, but where they have to copy BT's retail prices in order to appear competitive.

Inclusive calls to 0870 numbers are another story. Ofcom removed revenue sharing in 2009. This enabled landline providers to charge these calls the same as calls to 01 and 02 numbers and make them inclusive. Ofcom made this optional. Mobile networks chose not to do so and have kept their retail call prices high. On 26 June 2015, revenue sharing returns to 0870 numbers and it is likely that these inclusive deals will end. This is of little consequence. When revenue sharing was removed in 2009, most users of 0870 numbers quickly migrated to 0844 and 0871 numbers to continue receiving revenue share payments. Additionally, many of the current users of 0870 numbers are required by CCR to move to the matching 0370 number or some other "basic rate" number.

Now that a large number of businesses, a variety of banks, and most government departments have moved their 084 and 087 lines over to cheaper 03 numbers there is fast becoming little or no need for callers to have inclusive calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers, even for those callers who have no idea this website exists.

The section "The BT Anomaly" (half way down the page) publications.parliament.uk - 617we06 may shed additional light.