Batter down your annual mobile costs article Discussion Area

TannoyMan_2

premist wrote:

hi everyone im a first time poster!

i currently have a contract with 3 and it is comin to and end at the end of january, i am on the video, talk and text 700 package which is costing mr £35 a month.

i am thinking of renewing my contract but only want to take out a 12 month contract not 18, and upgrade either to a sony ericsson k800i or nokia n73, and also reduce my line rental.

has anyone got any tips on how to haggle my line rental down and get a 12 month contract?

thanx

I had the talk and text 600 package on two phones, I have posted a fuller message elsewhere so I will keep this short. I cancelled the contracts and were offered alternate deals with new phones etc, all of which I turned down. Eventually I agreed to my phones being converted to PAYG.

A couple of weeks later I was again phoned to offer me 100 xnet mins & 100 txt a month (12 mth contract) for £5.50 a YEAR! No new phone, but I had nearly £300 of credit on my phones which I am now working off at £20 a month. Provided I don't go over the included mins I will face a hefty bill of £5.50 in month 12.

Works for me! :T

Cinders2001

I am with T-Mobile and have been since we first got a mobile phone when they were near brick size (or when T-Mobile first came in - whatever....)

Can the same principle be used? Can they cut the call charge for per minute calls etc even though there is no contract for monthly bills?

Thanks.
:smileyhea if I can!!

dupuytren

As an update to my previous message about upgrading with O2..

I called O2 again, and as they still won't budge and since Apex said I couldn't go for more, I decided to settle and actually I think it's still quite a bargain had I not been greedy with the phone. I chickened out and decided not to go for redemption as I'm away quite a lot next year and won't be able to remember to claim it! So now I'm on a £15 a month plan for 200xnet and 100 texts, and I just received my brand new Sony Ericsson K750i today! Decided not to go for SE K610i coz the nice lady on the phone told me that she still prefers the 750i coz it has a better camera! Btw a similar deal is available on Mobileshop.com but on an 18mth contract if anyone's interested..(mine's 12 month).

Anyhow, much to my surprise today, when I received my package, it also came with 3 James Bond films (2DVDs each) - Goldeneye, goldmemeber and somehting else with roger moore in it which I can't remember..I'm very pleased indeed! :j

Cinders2001

ooo! Hubby has just yesterday bought the same Sony Ericsson K750i as well!

He wants me to upgrade mine to as my little Nokia 3310 is starting to regularly lock up on me. (but I like my little one).

Can you or anyone persuade me to change?
I need a good reason though.

Would I be better off on a contract?
I only spend about £20 in 3 months though on my PAYG

tomgrant

this GMTV article thing neglected to mention Commitment dates and early termination fees. you cant just threaten to leave a network if you're in contract, they'll sting you with early termination fees etc. Plus, you signed up to the contract in the first place, you cant just go changing it because you're unhappy with it - YOU AGREED TO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE! However, if you are out of contract, threatening to leave does usualyl work

danfaiz

Hello Money-savers!

I just want to thank Martin for his article which inspired me to try and take charge of my mobile-phone spending. I was on Orange Premier 600 (600 x-net minutes, no texts) before, but I usually spend £70 monthly. In September, I went into a bit of trouble as my bill skyrocketed to more than £400! So I called up Orange to arrange a payment scheme with the last payment settled 2 days ago.

Being in the last month of my contract, I decided to give Martin's haggling technique a try today, and I was delighted when the nice lady I spoke to offered me a smashing deal. I was given 800 x-net minutes, 200 texts, free insurance for the whole contract and unlimited data transfer for the first 2 months, all for £25 per month! (tariff £45, monthly discount auto-credited £20) Oh, they also threw in (for freeness!) the SE W950i that I wanted, plus another 40 points that I can use to reduce my payment (effectively a month and a half of my bills). I love Orange.

I never thought I could haggle before, so YAY for me!

Points to share:
- I "researched" various phone deals online and found one that I really like (O2, 800 mins, 100 texts, free SE W950i, £35 a month) on OneCompare, and used it as leverage when I called to "end my contract", with a bit of spicing up here and there.
- I was polite in the whole conversation with the Retentions dept. (the "Are-you-thinking-of-leaving-Orange? option) and used every haggling script I found in this thread.

So, thanks again, and best of luck to those who are yet to do this.

P/s: Sorry for the long post. I'm still giddy from excitement.

naj131

Sis phoned up today to get her pac from Orange.

She had been looking to move to o2 vis CPW on the 600 xnet min 18mth contract which worked out at about 14/mth after cashback.

She was offered a £45 18m tariff with 600 xnet and unlimited txts with a £540credit to her a/c at the end of the 18months, effectively meaning £15/mth. And she also got the N73 for free.

Only downside is having to weight 18m for the cb, but all in all a pretty impresive result. Didn't expect this as in my experience in the past orange retention offers have been pretty poor

WillD_2

naj131 wrote:

She was offered a £45 18m tariff with 600 xnet and unlimited txts with a £540credit to her a/c at the end of the 18months, effectively meaning £15/mth. And she also got the N73 for free.

Credit isn't cashback. Doesn't that mean naj131's sis will have to pay £45 a month and then when she wants to get a new contract, she'll have £540 credit on her orange account, basically this means months 19-31 are free! So its pay for 18 months, get another year free.

bodderz

Hi all,

Thought I'd mention what I managed to get with Orange. Up until today I was on 200mins with no texts @ £30 a month. I had seen a SIM-only deal on the O2 site that I was interested in as it was £30 for 500mins with 1000 texts and was a 1 month rolling contract. Orange wouldn't even try and match so initially they cancelled my contract as I had asked. The only 'haggling' the woman cared to have with me was:

"You can have an 18 month contract, 200 texts and a new phone for £30"

Firstly, I have a Nokia 8800 which I love so I didn't want a new phone. And secondly, I don't want to be tied in for 18 months! I rang back and was offered a 12 month contract with 300 mins with 100 texts for £20 a month with no new handset. I had them make a note of this on the system while I thought about it. I rang back again and asked if I can reduce the minutes so that the line rental could come down.

I got it down to 200mins with 100 texts for £15. That may not seem like such a good deal but when I only use an average of 140mins per month (as the person told me), I think the £5 for 100 mins more would be wasted anyway.

So all in all, I was quite pleased - I cut my monthly bill by half and got 100 texts thrown in. :beer:

Matt

adavida

I also failed to bargain a better offer with Orange - maybe it is because I wanted a specific phone. All the networks are offering the Motorola KRZR free with £25 per month contracts - apart from Orange who want £99.99 I have had a £25 per month contract with Orange for 2 years and the best retentions were prepared to do was £79.99.

When I said 'Sorry I will have to leave you then' he just said 'Ah well - shall I post you a PAC number?' No-one was rude, but they were not prepared to budge.

So I'm off to Virgin with the same price contract, new free phone, nearly three times the minutes and three times the texts!