Telus, Koodo auto-pay more expensive when you use a credit card

Early this morning, Telus altered the way its auto-pay discount worked. Now, you get $5 off monthly if you pay with a credit card or $10 when you link it to your bank account. Shortly after, the carrier’s flanker, brand Koodo, followed suit. It remains to be seen if Public Mobile will also adopt this change.

It should be noted that this new pricing only applies to new signups. Existing Telus and Koodo customers won’t be affected.

Bell appears to be the only other major carrier with this type of situation, however, it appears Bell only allows for pre-authorized debits and doesn’t offer a credit card auto-pay discount option. Virgin Plus, Bell’s flanker brand, didn’t adopt this change.

While this new pricing structure means that Telus and Koodo’s bottom-end pricing stays the same, it makes it more annoying to get that price if you want to use your credit card to help build credit or acquire points. This also comes after Telus attempted to add a credit card processing fee to customers’ bills in 2022 and was slapped on the wrist by the CRTC. Then, a few months later, it scrapped the fee. However, that feels more related to lost sales and tarnished brand perception than to any actual regulatory input.

To avoid the new fee, a user on Reddit suggested signing up for pre-authorized debits to get the $10 discount and then manually paying your bill with a credit card a few days before it becomes due. This sounds like it might work, but it will be a huge hassle.

Auto-pay discounts have been around for a few years as a new way to incentivize users to pay their bills on time. They’ve become normalized, but traditionally, when we saw them established, the carriers usually just replaced a cheaper plan with the same price. Now, it involves auto-pay, so it’s hard to consider them a true discount.