o2 pay as you go tarriffs help please

Smooth Hound · o2 pay as you go tarriffs help please

ive been looking at the o2 pay as you go tarriffs, and it seems that if i spend 15 pounds a month , then i get 1000 minutes free calls to another o2 line or a landline, firstly does anyone know whether i am understanding this properly, and secondly will i have any free texts as well, and thirdly i cant find on there site anywhere that it says how much it costs a minute to other networks. can anyone advise me on this. below is the site im looking at

http://www.o2.co.uk/mobilestariffs/tariffs/paygo/favouriteplace

Forget-me-Not · O2

I'm sorry I'm worse than hopeless but if it's anyhelp at all. We've all just moved to Virgin and it's brilliant, a great signal absolutely everwhere as recommended by a friend who lives in a dip. Different tarrifs and great communication. We have two £12 contracts lasting 18 months which are 150 mins talk and 150 texts a month and a PAYG. There are £15 contracts too.

Not what you asked but you never know, may help.

Beth

Smooth Hound

thanks, im not wanting a contract though really, i want to be able chop and change as the deals change, and a contract would tie me in, if you see what i mean,

IainC

There are plenty of options like that on all providers.

The wife uses a £15 PAYG type, if she tops up with £15 in a month she gets a set amount of txts free (think you get the option of which you want, txts or calls... maybe even both? when you take it out). If she doesn't top up she doesn't get the extras.

AFAIR the extras only last for a month after the top up (ie don't use 1000 mins in the month you lose the mins you haven't used).

Smooth Hound

but would i still have 15 pounds to use on other networks and how much a min would that be,

i cant understand why o2 dont explain this

Martin

best deal by a million miles is Asda's new one - pay as you go, texts 4p, calls 8p to anything, no contract, 50p for a sim.........
http://www.asda-mobile.com/ - put £10 worth on mine when I transferred in October, and have yet to top up!

IainC

IainC

Martin

O2 use what I'd call a "shock and awe" sales technique - they focus you on the "free" part, so that you overlook the "pay" part - to my mind, it is utterly ludicrous to spend £15 a month with a mobile 'phone company just to get 500 texts or whatever - unless you're a batty teenager, you do not NEED to send nearly 20 texts a day............what they'll also overlook telling you is that if you haven't used up those "free" texts or the £10-15 you've parted with per month, you'll lose 'em...... (it's designed to confuse the bejaysus out of you so that you spend a fortune, EVERY month......) - also you can only use the freebies from one postcode, so you have to choose home/work or pub........

Being a simple soul (and having been robbed blind with contracts in the past), I can honestly get through 6 months on under a tenner without any trouble at all, using a simple, straightforward payg system like Asda. It's piggybacked on the Vodaphone network, and works really well!

IainC

Must be O2 that limit where you can send the freebies from, Orange don't have that limitation at all. Agree with the fact that they are effectively tying you into a "contract".

Smooth Hound

its a thousand minutes of talk time, to landlines and o2 nos, which is 1 and a half p a minute, thats good i reckon, as you say though, its not telling me how much to ring other networks, in all there adverts there is nothing i can see to say how much a min that would be,
ill need to know that before i can do anything, i have the asda one now, so maybr ill stick with that, will i have to get a new sim card from asda for that, or will it be ok for the one ive got, i bought it about 3 months ago,

Martin

I think if you've got an Asda payg card that should be the one - if you're using their network,you can call "2732" from your mobile , and ask.... from a home line 0845 303 2732.
Why not "start at the other end" - forget for a moment all about offers, and concentrate on what you actually NEED........ It can't be that difficult to work out roughly what your average calls/text useage is for an average week or month, THEN see how the different price plans "work for you"

If, for instance I did it for myself, it's quite easy - probably 5 -10 texts in a week, 5-10 minutes calls - assuming that I was going utterly beresk and using the upper of those estimates, in a month that'd be 40 texts and 40 minutes of calls.........at Asda prices that's £1.60, and £3.20 - £4.80 per month, and money left "on the account" is carried over to the next month
O2 deal - £15 up my kilt every month - assuming I make half my calls from my one "chosen number", I get 20 free calls and 20 @their rate
(a crippling 25p minute), that's £5, so you've got a tenner left it ain't going to last long..........
http://www.o2.co.uk/mobilestariffs/tariffs/paygo/talkalot
-so what it actually boils down to is the fact that you could be firing off £15 a month to O2, when you could have got the same calls and texts that you actually use for probably a third of that......... and not have these nonsensical "free but only from one post code" calls to try to use up every month.
I now know where the financial crooks who designed the financial derivatives that caused the worldwide banking collapse have moved onto..........
What they're relying on is that the idea of "free" calls will get you into a habit of heavy usage, the idea being that you probably won't keep careful track of actually which calls are "free", and which are at very much "premium" rates.......... "500 mins to any UK landline or O2 mobile from a registered postcode" - they hope you call loads of people on other mobile networks, OR a landline (@25p minute), or just make loads of calls when you're not in that specified postcode........

Smooth Hound

yes i sgree, but i do keep count

thats where ive got them, i will be needing a mobile quite a bit soon, thats why im looking in to it, if only i could find out how much to other networks, and this seems to be where they dont tell you, thats no good to me,

im not sure what to do, most of my calls will be to landlines, but some will be to mobile, one of the people ill be ringing quite alot is on g3, i was thinking of that one, but problem is is i cant get a reception at home with g3,
do you know which network asda run on, its either o2 or vodaphone, when i phoned them they couldnt tell me

but i know its one of them .

Martin

vodaphone!

Smooth Hound

Ratchet

Hi All

I don't know if it helps but Hubby and I are on O2 PAYG and if we top up by £10 per month we get 50 inclusive anytime/network mins. The more you top up the more inclusive mins you get. As we are really uncommunicative we don't often use the 'free' mins and build up a balance on the phone. So to avoid it getting out of hand we then stop topping up and run down the balance to around £10. Then we start topping up again to start getting the 'free' mins again. Martin Lewis's website www.moneysavingexpert.com is a good place to start to work out which mobile tarriff is best for you. I like the sound of Ikea's service www.familymobile.co.uk (they use T-mobile's network) with it's auto top up and way of controlling the mobile budget of all family members. Having said that at this end of the market I'm not sure that the savings are worth the hassle of changing networks.

Yours

Ratchet

Smooth Hound

ill take a look at those sites. thanks for the info

Martin

IKEA's is similar to, but not as cheap as Asda's payg (8p and 4p).......

50 minutes on Asda to anything at anytime is 50x8p - £4 - no monthly limits, no "losing" call or text times........

So far, after about 10 weeks, I've not managed to use a quid's worth yet!

Ina

Bigman

o2 now do the o2 unlimited package which gives u "unlimited calls and texts to o2". you can spend a maximum of 8hours a day for free, and send 300 texts a day. Dont know what other call charges are.......

Martin

As with all offers of this sort, it's a case of "spot the catch" - I've spotted two - first of all, you've got to shell out a minimum of £15 a month (hells teeth, you could keep yourself in dancing girls for that!), and the free calls are only to other O2 users (all 28 of them) - the con being that all the other rates will be stratospheric, and everyone you need to call is on another network......
So you'll end up spending £200 a month all to call the one person you know on O2 for 8 hours a day......
I'm a teensie sceptical!

Bigman

alot of my friends are on o2 so it saves me some money lol... nix, her son and I are all on o2 so it saves us alot of money...