O2 Sim Only

[Steveam]

I’ve been with o2 for a long time. I have unlimited calls and texts and some excessive amount of data allowance. They recently told me that my monthly charge would increase to £14-14 per month. I ‘phoned (nightmare delay) but have now negotiated down to £10-40 per month.

Not a big or significant saving but better in my pocket than theirs.

Best wishes,

Steve

[staffordian]

How much data is that for?

I was moved to O2 from Virgin mobile a year or so ago and I have unlimited calls and texts plus 10GB per month (far more than I use) for £5, going up to £5.44 from April.

[DrFfybes]

We're with Sky, who are O2 I think.

Currently paying £6/month for 4Gb and unlimited texts and calls. Also get a data piggy bank so unused data is held for a year, although we never use it. We get a deal apparently as Sky Platinum customers, which means they probably make it up on the TV charge

Paul

[Steveam]

Love it! In my conceit I thought I had a good deal - you guys are way ahead!

£10-40 for unlimited voice and texts plus 10GB data. No contract period. (I was previously paying £13-10.

Lesson learnt

Best wishes, Steve

[Niksen]

£10-40 for unlimited voice and texts plus 10GB data. No contract period. (I was previously paying £13-10.

They certainly took you for a ride

http://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/compare/sim_only_deals/

Through that website, £10 gets you unlimited voice and texts plus 40GB data with O2 ( or if that is far too much data then £8 gets you 32GB or £6.99 gets you 6GB).

[staffordian]

Love it! In my conceit I thought I had a good deal - you guys are way ahead!

£10-40 for unlimited voice and texts plus 10GB data. No contract period. (I was previously paying £13-10.

Lesson learnt

Best wishes, Steve

You have my sympathy. I hate mobile phone companies only slightly less than Sky et al.

I have only just got over the usual stress of trying to get my TV & BB costs down

What annoys me is the way they try to make out how good they are being to you whilst slipping in a huge increase. I had an email from Sky saying (in slightly different words) they were doing me a big favour by extending part of my broadband discount for a further eighteen months. This overlooked the fact, which they omitted to mention, that my monthly combined bill (TV &BB) was rising from £61 to around £72, and then with the April cost of living rise, to £80.

My first call resulted in the advisor saying the best he could do was get me the same services for £83 (!).

A second call a week later did result in me getting the same for £69.

I'm still unsure if it's a good deal, and maybe others here will have done better, but life is too short to stress too much once best efforts have been expended...

[DrFfybes]

Love it! In my conceit I thought I had a good deal - you guys are way ahead!

£10-40 for unlimited voice and texts plus 10GB data. No contract period. (I was previously paying £13-10.

Lesson learnt

Best wishes, Steve

I should mention it did go up from £6 to £8 this month until I phoned to query the 33% rise, so they dropped it back and doubled the data.

And I get a non smart Noikia 105 phone with same calls and texts (no data, pbviously) for 150p/month for 2 years, which included the phone. This works out about the same as buying the handset, and I needed to replace my previous Nokia as after 6 years the battery now needs charging about once a week.

Paul

[the0ni0nking]

I'm with ID Mobile - which allows me unlimited minutes and texts and 12GB data a month which costs me £6/month.

[ukmtk]

I'm still with Three. I started PAYG with them when they had the 123 package.
Even now my current spend is probably less than £20 per year.

Sky: when I left them to start with Freesat the customer guy tried to offer me various inducements to stay.
When I said that I was determined to leave he asked why and I said "so as to no longer line Mr Murdoch's pockets".
He then asked me if I was a communist! I kid you not. I still laugh about that.

Many thanks for the various hints on how to save money on mobile deals.

[Niksen]

Many thanks for the various hints on how to save money on mobile deals.

My top tips are -

1. Before you call your existing company do some research so you know what they are offering you is a good deal or not.

2. You will never get the best deal from any telecom company's website going directly to it, e.g. typing the address in or from a search engine. As for going into one of their physical stores!

3. Look at comparison sites such as Uswitch, as weirdly they will take you through to the company's websites but will offer deals not visible otherwise.

4. Look at the cash back sites such as Topcashback and Quidco, but be aware that receiving cash back can be a bit hit or miss, so treat it as icing on top.

5. If you are out of contract you don't need to speak to anyone to get a PAC to transfer your number and cancel your contract, you can just text PAC to 65075.

The PAC is valid for 30 days, and undoubtably after you request it you will be contacted by your existing companies retentions team with deals to persuade you to stay.

If you don't use the PAC to move elsewhere then nothing happens with your existing contract, as it is only when you give your PAC to a new provider they use it to take your number over to them and to cancel the contract with the previous provider using the 'Text to Switch' service.

6. Worth looking at are MVNOs who are separate companies such as Lebara, Tesco, Sky, etc. who pay to access the main telecom company networks, but they may not offer the full range of services that the telecom company does. You may care about such things, or you may not.

7. Then there are the telecom companies own discount brands, which are not MVNOs despite people thinking they are. GiffGaff is just part of O2 and Smarty is part of Three and Voxi is part of Vodafone and Plusnet is owned by BT/EE. These brands are where the companies can offer cheaper prices to those who are price sensitive without needing to discount the main brand. However again these discount brands may not offer the full range of services that the telecom company does.

8. Finally roaming. If you spend lots of time away from the UK it is worth checking what the roaming policy and fees are before you sign up. Some such as O2 still offer inclusive roaming in the EU, but it is generally now only the EU rather than older contracts that also included roaming in a wider areas such as Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland. Currently my phones are on a pre-July 2021 EE contract so I get the full Europe wide roaming included.

[DrFfybes]

.

8. Finally roaming. If you spend lots of time away from the UK it is worth checking what the roaming policy and fees are before you sign up. Some such as O2 still offer inclusive roaming in the EU, but it is generally now only the EU rather than older contracts that also included roaming in a wider areas such as Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland. Currently my phones are on a pre-July 2021 EE contract so I get the full Europe wide roaming included.

All very good points, worth noting that O2 piggyback providers do not have the same policies as O2 proper so worth checking.

Sky use O2 and have a roaming fee, £2/24 hours to use your allowance in the EU, triggered when you first use data/send a text/call.

Paul

[swill453]

Sky use O2 and have a roaming fee, £2/24 hours to use your allowance in the EU, triggered when you first use data/send a text/call.

I know, it's annoying. But they are also one of the few that don't have a "fair usage" cap, and they also roll over unused data for up to a year.

So for my £2/day I can happily use streaming video for a month in Europe without a worry.

(I actually use my wife's capped data allowance on Talkmobile first, reverting to my £2/day when that's used up.)

Scott.

[Niksen]

Sky use O2 and have a roaming fee, £2/24 hours to use your allowance in the EU, triggered when you first use data/send a text/call.

That's where picking the right company can make all the difference, as £2 a day doesn't sound bad, but £60 a month sounds awful if you are away for long periods, and Sky (as far as I know) don't do longer term bundles.

[Lootman]

How much data is that for?

I was moved to O2 from Virgin mobile a year or so ago and I have unlimited calls and texts plus 10GB per month (far more than I use) for £5, going up to £5.44 from April.

I have been with O2 for 15 years and so am not that interested in switching around. I pay about £12 a month which I regard as trivial and not worth the hassle and risk of switching to save a few more quid, if that is even possible.

But 10GB data?!? I have a 2GB limit and have never hit it.

[the0ni0nking]

Just to expand on my earlier post - I'm still working and UK tax resident but split my time broadly 50/50 between the UK and Spain.

I have a work mobile (which is with EE) and I don't ever get to see the bill so no idea what is included or what my usage costs - it would be mainly data as all "phone" calls are mainly done through Teams.

My personal mobile is dual sim - one is the ID mobile sim (UK @ £6/month for unlimited calls, texts and 12GB data) and the other is a Lobster sim (Spain @ 12.99 Euros/month for unlimited calls, texts and 50GB data).

I suspect I could probably bin off my UK sim but at £6/month I hardly notice it and it will be useful to have when I hand back my work mobile in a few years time.

I never get anywhere near the data on either but the main benefit is that in the same way that some UK websites require a UK mobile number, so some ES websites requires a Spanish number. And so I just bit the bullet and got one. (Leroy Merlin - the equivalent of say B&Q - sticks in my mind as one; I also think some things that need to go through the Ayuntamiento or Policia Local/Policia Nacional wanted this too).

It's easy enough to switch preferences between which SIM uses the data etc when wifi isn't available and the ID mobile one is set to not allow me to incur and charges outside of those included so nice and consistent.

[staffordian]

How much data is that for?

I was moved to O2 from Virgin mobile a year or so ago and I have unlimited calls and texts plus 10GB per month (far more than I use) for £5, going up to £5.44 from April.

I have been with O2 for 15 years and so am not that interested in switching around. I pay about £12 a month which I regard as trivial and not worth the hassle and risk of switching to save a few more quid, if that is even possible.

But 10GB data?!? I have a 2GB limit and have never hit it.

Virgin allowed me 2GB and (only?!?)2500 minutes of calls, but any unused data could be rolled over for one month. I never used close to 2GB so after the first month I was always using the previous month's unused data and rolling forward the full 2.

When O2 took over my contract they didn't do rollover so doubled my data

After a few months I noticed better deals being offered, rang them and was offered a cheaper deal, 10GB and unlimited minutes. I only use a small fraction of data and minutes, but I wasn't going to turn down a better and cheaper deal