Batter down your annual mobile costs article Discussion Area

naf123

i was on orange for £25 a month for unlimited texts and some minutes (dunno - im deaf and dont use minutes) and a free blackberry because i wanted to type fast but no email was needed. Now 16 months later, my contract was almost up, so i called the rententions department.

Now I get 18 month contract that has

A free shiny new blackberry 8120
£15 a month contract for 100 mins and unlimited texts
£6 for 6meg internet and email (blackberry tariff)

total per month £21.

I am more than pleased with myself. You wouldnt get this blackberry anywhere for less than £30 a month!! (unless on 24 months plans) and you will have to pay on top of that for the blackberry tariff! (o2 charges £10 extra for that)

thanks martin!:money:

Concerenced

I decided to keep the deal i was offered from three (1100 mix and match minutes for £20/month plus nokia 6500 classic bronze)

I then bought the nokia n95 8gb from ebay for £245 (the phone i originally wanted) and have sold the nokia 6500 for £140

This means i get the phone i want, with this tariff for just over £25/month £10 cheaper than they were willing to offer me it for.

This was the only way i could reduce my tariff, not ideal but worthwhile.

Jizza

I'm on PAYG with O2 for more than 1.5 now. I want SE W960i. Anyone reckon I can get any bonuses as PAYG user?
I dont want to pay more than 25/30 a month.

BaobabAmy

Last year got a similar deal to someone earlier. On the proviso that I kept my old phone (which was working fine ad I was happy with it) - I effectively paid £13 for the entire year. This was 500 mins and 100 texts on 3.

Just tried as 12 months is almost up. Wouldn't offer me anything good to keep my phone. Would only really offer me what was on the 3 website (plus a free skype upgrade). Pretty diasappointed. So - am moving to O2 on a cashback offer. Have sucessfully managed cashback before, so shouln't be a problem (I hope) and is with a subsidery of carphone warehouse so hopefully not going to be one of these ones that goes bankcrupt!

sam_bailey88

hey, just thought id share my brilliant ( i think so anyway) deal with you. i was on an 18 month with orange which was cashback off dialaphone; it was 35/month for 500 mins and 500 texts. way to much for me now.
so rang up orange and spoke to some guy who offered me 500 mins and 350 texts for 25 a month and samsung g600... this was the 'best' he could do. even after i told him mix n match 1100 on 3 was 20/month! he told me he'd put a note on my file and a disconnection notice for me.
I was obviously not happy with this so rang them the next day and said got made an offer yesterday which just wasnt good enough and if they couldnt do any better would be going to 3. so. turns out he hadnt put the deal on my file.. not that botherd cos it was rubbish anyway, first thing; i changed my phone to the new sony w910i and then she said i could have 600 mins and unltd texts for 20/month. RESULT!!

so thats 35/month for 500 of each to 20/month for 600 mins and unlimited texts!

:beer:

System

After calling O2 to discuss my options, I managed to get a deal of £30 a month for a sim only 18 month contract of 1200 mins + 1000 texts + an o2 bolt on (might go for unlimited web usage) plus as I was keeping my phone they offered me a £180 credit.

On the downside after the 18 months the contract goes back to £45 months but I figure I can renegotiate again then.

Sound like a good deal???

ntownads

definitely wait until your contract is up, or even go to another place now as you may get cashback to cover your old contract till its end (tell them theres 6months left and the'll probably pay it all, at its cheapest rate, plus you would get the new customer ofers from all of your current providers competitors. Also worth telling your current provider you intend to leave and mean it, they always cave to some degree then, and either way you should have a very wide range of phones to cjoose fro,...i tend to get the most expensive ones they offer, so they sell on at good price when the contract is up!

djg1987

Hi, I decided to have a go at getting my contract down and got a great result .
Rang Orange and asked when my contract ended, they said this month, so i asked how I would go about cancelling. The woman said let me see what else we could offer you.
Previously I had:
free Nokia 7373
300 minutes
400 texts
12 month contract
£35/ Month

Now managed to negoiate:
Nokia 6500 Classic Bronze £9.99
600 minutes
unlimited texts
18 month contract
£20/ Month
I tried to push for a free phone or a lower number of months but the woman didn't seem able to offer any less and was quite happy with what I achieved .

Would tell anyone in last month of their contract to do this, the Orange operator was really nice and polite and was keen to keep the business.

PJDubyaM

So I was coming to the end of my contract, and thought I'd check out the Money Saving Expert recommendations on how to save some money. Worked a treat.

I'm on Vodafone, and upgraded about a year ago to a Sony Ericsoon W880i. Nice little phone, slim and lovely. I was paying about £45 per month on a twelve month contract. Checking back through my bills, I was horrified to learn that there were a few months where I went over my limits, meaning that Vodafone had managed to get £780 out of me over the past year. Even sticking within my limits, I was looking at £550 per year. Ouch.

I spent some time checking what other deals were out there, and got in my head what it was I was after (swanky new handset, less money per month, etc). I navigated through to their 'I'm thinking of leaving Vodafone' department, and spoke to a nice guy called Edwin.

I played it annoyed / frustrated at first, turning in to 'smile in the voice' as Edwin started giving me what I wanted. Once I'd got what I thought was going to be his best offer for the moment, I said that I'd like to think about it some more, and arranged for him to call back.

That he did, and I told him that he was close to closing the deal, but not quite there yet. I told him that I could switch providers and get a much better deal from a competitor (although I left out the bit about having to trade in my old handset). He reduced the contract time from 18 months to 12 but - given that that's where I thought we were before - I wasn't happy to stop. I asked him to add one more sweetener to seal the deal, and he did.

So, from £45 per month on an okay-ish handset, I got down to:

- Top-of-the-range, only-just-been-released Samsung F490 touchscreen super-phone.
- £25 per month (£300/annum rather than £550).
- 12 month contract rather than 18.
- Free in-car charger.
- Free bluetooth headset.

...and I keep my old handset, which I can now flog on Ebay for about a ton.


My tips:

- Start off sounding a bit annoyed (business-like rather than aggressive, though); as soon as they start offering you better deals, relax in to 'smile in the voice' mode.
- At the end of the first round of negotiation, get them to call you back. Use this time to plan your next move, and to research the opposition. I 'doubled my deal' during the second phone call.
- Do your research, and let them know that you've done it. When they offer you something, refer to a few choice plans from competitors that you'll have written down beforehand. Refer to just the good bits from each plan - you're trying to get them to offer you a deal constructed by cherry-picking the best bits from their competitors' offers.

Thanks to Martin and previous posters for the advice.

Pete.

Entrust

Hi Everyone

Just found out about this forum over on The Motley Fool. Hope somebody can help a bit.

Just coming off my 18 month contract with Orange. Got a Sony 810i with 300 minutes and 150 texts on the £30 a month tarrif(Dolphin?) originally. After cashbacks and redemptions it worked out at just under £10PCM.

Couple of questions. First of all, what would be the best kind of deal I could get from Orange too keep, say, 200 minutes and 200 texts with NO new phone?

Secondly, would it be cheaper to get a new redemptions package from someone than going back to Orange for a follow on deal?

I'm happy with the phone I have so don't NEED a new one. I don't use the Orange broadband package either.

Cheers for any helpful input.