Moving from Contract Orange phone to PAYG

Sorting_Out

Hi,
I would really appreciate some help and advice about my mobile phone as I am thinking of moving from contract to PAYG.
I have a contract with orange, that I've renewed for the past eight years and each year have been given extra minutes etc, so that now, I pay £29.79 before VAT for my service plan of 1000 minutes and 100 texts a month, however lately my bill has been more like £40 - 45 a month, partly because YS has been borrowing my phone, partly because I've had to phone local rate numbers. It's getting a bit pricey.
So, I have taken some steps by having a private home phone line installed (at £29.99 rather than £129.99 on BT's special offer- Thanks Martin)
This means people ie family will now phone me, rather than what used to happen which is me phoning them because they refused to phone a mobile.
So my phone use will go down significantly.
This is why I have been thinking of going from my monthly contract (ends in Feb) to a PAYG.
Is that a wise decision based on the above info, and has anyone any help to offer please? I would dearly like to keep my number too if possible.
Thank you

TightStudent

Before you do anything ring Orange upgrades and tell them you're thinking of switching to PAYG at the end of your contract, they should offer you a much cheaper contract (especially if as you say you've been running over your minutes. Then either get the cheapest deal with your current handset or get a new handset and flog it on ebay and carry on using your old one.

reehsetin

either aim for a retentions deal as stated above or look at the sim only plans,

if you topped up £15 per month on a payg you would get 100mins, the same on a sim only you would get 300mins 100texts and unlimited landline calls. your not tied into a contract you would just need to give 30 days notice to cancel so even if you decided to go to payg after you can

lr1277

As you don't say which PAYG provider you are moving to, here are my experiences when I did this about two years ago and moved from Orange Contract to Fresh.

Please be aware of the following:
Phoning 08... number is about 40p/min with most PAYG providers. Check the rate before you transfer.
Orange charged me one further month's fee after giving notice. It is in their T's and C's. I just wasn't expecting it.
Fresh were absolutely awful at transferring in the number. It took them weeks. By that time, I had transferred again to Easymobile. Yes Fresh were still trying to transfer in my number even though I had requested a PAC code.
Easymobile were the best PAYG operator because of the low rates (excluding 08 numbers) and you could log on and see your call history. Brilliant!!!!:j
You may also be aware Easymobile withdrew their service and sent their customers to Fresh. They managed to transfer the number in this time. I am still with Fresh but thinking of coming home to Orange PAYG as their call rate has dropped significantly in the last two years.

Hope that helps.

rash.m2k

Quotes O2's unlimited calls to landlines and that should bring your price down a little.

reehsetin

orange does unlimited free calls to landlines anyway on the racoon/panther plans