Batter down your annual mobile costs article Discussion Area

makeni555

Been on EE/Tmobile for 5 years - just renewed from 24 month iphone contract to 12 month sim only - Max plan: £13.99 pm for 12GB data and unlimited calls and texts & EU + 5 extra countries.

Calculated as - £28.99 pm for 7GB unlimited calls and texts, then add ons of: 5GB free data and £15 loyalty discount.

Called in and did as an early upgrade deal - so saved 45 days worth of higher priced line rental - worth knowing for other EE customers that you can 'downgrade' to sim only as soon as your eligible for the standard upgrade which for me meant an extra £33 off making the line rental effectively £11.24 pm for the year.

(as £36 pm - £13.99 = £22 pm at 45 days = £33 savings or £2.75 off per month extra, £13.99-£2.75 = £11.24 pm)

Only had to mention carphone warehouse was trying to get me to upgrade with them, barely any haggle required, Irish call centre. Especially handy if you stuck with the big networks as I still need WiFi calling which isn't on many mvno's.

Loopy33

Contract ended so I followed your advice to haggle and it worked! Did my research for best sim card and rang O2. Gave them my best find and they beat it. Got 5GB data, unlimited calls and texts for £15 a month instead of their usual price of £24 and thats a massive saving on the £37 a month I have been paying!

savingpennies

This might be of use to someone out there. Out of contract so contacted my provider (Vodafone) and said I wanted to leave as I had found a better deal (Virgin, 5GB, unltd texts and 1500 mins for £9 on Quidco plus £14 cashback). They offered the same plus free worldwide roaming (some exclusions) for £10.80 with first two months free. Ok it didn't get the £14 cashback but I'm happy with it.

Merlin's_Beard

Three have just kept me on the line for half an hour trying to flog me the same deal that I'd rejected in the first five minutes.... yes, it's a good deal, no the lovely extras thrown in aren't anything I'll use! Five requests to stop the sales pitch and just process the damn thing later...!

I also didn't ask for the lecture about how Three was worth paying twice the price of companies who piggyback off others networks... especially from an offshore callcentre who realistically can't have an actual clue about how good those networks are....!

whirlingdervish

This is from 6 months ago, but I thought it wise to tell people how I changed to SIM only with EE.

I had a two year contract with EE buying a phone and 4GB of use etc. It cost £33 a month. About two weeks before the contact ran out I went to an EE store and was offered a contract for £24 for a SIM only deal. This was terrible value as I had checked previously. The assistant also had no room to haggle at all and so I said to her "I bet I get a better deal with your retention department" and she gave a sly smile as I left.
I phoned EE and pressed the option - I want to leave EE mobile. I decided that nice was the way to go to get the best offer. I said that I got a great signal where I usually go with EE and no complaints, but said regretfully I have to ask for the PAC code as the best deal you are offering is £24 and other companies are doing it much cheaper. (I had on my computer screen a comparison site list) She asked me what other deals I was looking at and said I had a comparison in front of me and quoted one and said Virgin was the best at £12. She then said that they did not want to lose loyal customers and she said she could apply two discounts - I remained silent and she said she could do it for £10.99 (4GB and unlimited calls and texts) I said oh that sounds better and when I did not say I would take it straight away, she then said I can offer you free BT Sports and if you agree to this contact now will waive your last payment of £33 and just charge £10.99. I then accepted the deal and thanked her for being so helpful.
This saved £13 a month on the shop deal with EE and £20 on my last contract payment, plus BT Sport and also under cut Virgin by a pound a month.
This was 6 months ago, but I bet it is basically the same process to get a much better SIM deal than those offered in an EE shop. It seems to me that the shops have no room for hagglers at all. Hope some of this may help if you are coming to an end of a contract with EE and you are wanting a SIM only deal

bestfootie

Was paying £23.50 pm on EE for unlimited calls, texts and 10GB data on SIMO.

I've had months of EE network issues.

I initially called upgrades got quoted best price of £19pm, equivalent tariff.

I called disconnections, explained calmly and succinctly I'm strongly considering leaving as I've found Virgin £18pm 45GB data deal, and BT £18.25pm 10 GB, unlimited calls and data.

He gave me two options:- £15pm the same as I was on before, or £16pm for 25GB data. Opted for the latter just in case I go over the ten (unlikely, but worth the peace of mind for £12 a year and those months where I may use more than 10GB I don't have to worry about getting data add-ons at £5 each time). So I've saved myself £90 pa and £48 on the initial upgrades offer.

Thanks

amber_cloud

I've got a SIM-only contract with Three for 1MB of data for £11 a month. The price is fine but the data wasn't nearly enough. I hate making phone calls so have been putting off calling them since my contract ended 6 months ago (the online upgrade offer was not good).

I finally called them today, said I was thinking of leaving and quoted better deals I'd seen elsewhere. They immediately offered me 4GB of data for £9 a month or 8GB for £10 a month. I took the 8GB. It's only £1 less a month but finally I will have enough data!

Thanks everyone for the encouraging stories and advice.

Justme63

Aware that I was paying over £10 for my SIM only with O2 and that I could pay less, I decided to switch to Tesco Mobile. Went into the store yesterday and signed up for £7.50pm which provided all the data etc I needed. Called O2 today for PAC code and they were suddenly able to offer me £7pm for 12 months with the same allowances I already had. Then called Tesco Mobile to cancel within the cooling off period.

Whilst I like the O2 Priority offers, I have found they are not as relevant to me as they once were and I was willing to forego this to get a cheaper deal, but happy now to still have it for the occasional free coffee, chocolate etc.

Good result I feel.:rotfl::rotfl:

pmduk

I think the moral of the post immediately above, is to have an idea what other networks are offering and ask your network to beat or match it.

Cull

Having got what we thought was a good deal with EE on an upgrade to an IPhone X we discovered that someone else got exactly the same deal £15 a month cheaper. Despite escalating a complaint EE were not prepared to price match . Apparently we could send the hand set back ( why on earth in this day and age does there have to be a physical transaction???) to restart the contract (14 day period) but there was still no guarantee. I said I had been a loyal customer and had three phones with EE . But they were not interested. So when my okther two phones are at the end of contract I will be going elsewhere. EE weren’t bothered with that either.