Tesco Mobile flat-rate & "roll-over" mins

stevie_m_3

If like me you are not interested in a new phone and don't always use your contract "free" minutes, consider moving to Tesco mobile PAYG. Having
been with O2 for seven years, I eventually cancelled my contract and said "no" to their attempts to keep me which went all the way up to 500 X-Network minutes, 200 texts for £15 a month, upgraded upgraded phone (ie 2 upgrades) and £125 credited to my account (OK, I cut off my nose to spite my face but I was so incensed at them pulling all the stops to try to keep me).

I've been fascinated with people in my office who are on £15 a month
for 50 X-Network minutes etc and are then 30p a minute when they use that up and think they have a good deal. My Tesco PAYG beats that.

The post is longish; bear with me until the end and you will see what
I am getting at.

You can get a Tesco "standard" SIM card either by ordering on their
website or by going in to a store and purchasing for a fiver and it has £1
call time on it. The following post, by the way, does *not* apply to the
Tesco "Value" Sim card which is a flat rate of 15p a min and 5p text but you
can't use it abroad. The "Standard" Sim and the "Extra" can be used abroad.
You can buy the "Extra" SIM on the internet for under a tenner with
£10 call time (so effectively the SIM is free) or like the "standard" SIM for
under a tenner with £1 call time (I think anyway, my 'standard' SIM card
came with £1 call time)

Here's the deal with Tesco (who run on the O2 network by the way so
if you are currently O2 customer you can swap SIM cards without getting phone unlocked) : Tesco mobile is a flat rate of 20p per minute to
landlines and mobiles. No cheap rate etc. 20p a minute. Texts are 10p.
Your unused money does not disappear at the end of the month so
effectively you are getting a minimum 50 X-Network minutes (assumning
you don't text ) for your tenner top-up which if you think about it
"roll-over". I say minimum because there are two ways to bump this
up. Before I go on to that, the 20p a minute is also to all of Europe
(landlines and local mobiles), USA, Australia, UAE and heaps of other
countries. Anyway, Tesco Mobile allows you to register three favourite
numbers (which stay on until you change them, you can change every thirty
days if you want) and those fave numbers are half-price; 10p a minute
and 5p to text. You get a text within 48 hours confirming your fave numbers are activated.

Tesco have just launched the "Tesco Extra" rate. Basically what this means
is that once you register for it (even if you originally purchased the "Standard" Sim-card you can switch easilly just by dialling a number on your phone and following the prompts) so long as you top up by £15 a month, *all* your UK calls and texts are at the half-price rate, ie 10p a minute and 5p text (this does not apply to phoning abroad). Given that the minimum top-up is a tenner, you are as well doing the £15. If you haven't topped up by £15 they will send a text to remind you. The thing is, you can let it lapse and you are back on the 20p/min + 10p text BUT your three favourite numbers kick back in at the half-price. The beauty is though that since you have registered for the "Extra", if you let it lapse all you have to do is top-up by £15 in the month again and within 24hrs you are back on the half-price rate without doing anything else. So think of it like this : if (like me) you phone or text the same three people or you register for the £15 top-up (topping-up in the normal way, direct debit not necessary), you are getting a maximum
of 150 X-Network minutes (or some combo of minutes and texts) for your £15 which *roll-over* continuously because your money doesn't get taken away at the end of the month.

The £15 top-up has to be done within a certain date, ie if you
register for the "Extra" on the 14th, your "month" is always the 14th to the
following 13th (I think) so topping up £10 on the 12th and the 16th wouldn't
count as over £15 in the "month". At least that is *my* understanding of how it works, apologies to Tesco if I am misquoting. As always, check the terms and conditions of such things yourself. They also do voice and text bundles ( 50 mins for £5 but they *do* run out if you don't use them in the 30 days and you can only have one voice and one text "bundle" per 30 days but again it is not direct debit, it is removed from your available credit). They also allow you to set up a weekly or monthly top-up direct debit and you
get 10% off, ie £10 call time, actually pay £9 etc which you can turn off
any time you want via their website.

As I said earlier, all of the above is *my* understanding of how it all works. Check the Tesco website for confirmation of the details. I've moved and am glad I did. I have half a dozen folk in my office ready to "move" when their contract runs out (you can of course port your number if you want)

I think there are heaps of people who, like me, are not interested in downloading TV to their mobiles etc, are not interested in upgrading phones year after year and just want a good rate for voice and text (Tesco mobile does allow you to send pictures but my phone doesn't so I can't tell you what it costs). Someone who offers a decent package is going to clean-up I think.

Hope this helps someone. I've been on it for three weeks now and have used £2.93 so far. This is helped though by the "decent" costs to use a land-line to phone mobiles now at the weekends. I'm embarassed at how much money I've flushed away over the years on a contract I haven't made decent use of.

pricefighter

You dont even have to top up by £15 to get all your calls for 10p, you just have to be creative in what numbers you put in as your best friends.

gizzmo_2

Not one to really consider Tesco before - I went shopping in Tesco today and spent over £100 on my monthly "BIG" shop - and I was given a voucher for £20 free call credit on Tesco mobile.
Now - I'm assuming that I have to spend some more money first on:-
1) buying a Tesco SIM and
2) unlocking an old phone (all mine are sony ericssons for which there are no free codes available)

So does this free credit seem worthwhile? I'm wondering.....
I suppose I could buy a £10 SIM with £10 credit (Tesco Extra) - and then I get £30 of calls for a £10 outlay. But then if you add up another £10 to unlock the phone - I'm spending £20 to get £20 free - so it doesn't look like such a good deal after all....

Thoughts anyone?

redux

stevie_m wrote:

So think of it like this : if (like me) you phone or text the same three people or you register for the £15 top-up ..., you are getting a maximum of 150 X-Network minutes (or some combo of minutes and texts) for your £15 which *roll-over* continuously because your money doesn't get taken away at the end of the month.

On O2 payg you can get up to 300 minutes to a mixture of landlines and mobiles and other countries for £10 plus a couple of quid on a calling card. Or 500 or 600 minutes for £15

stevie_m_3

I looked at O2 PAYG (I think a colleague of mine was on Genie or summat and it was their 300 free mins for topping up £30 which enraged me enough to cancel my O2 contract). Do the minutes on the O2 PAYG roll over at
all ? As with everything, it is horses for courses. Having been paying £14.99 + VAT for a contract I wasn't really using, I'm embarassed last month to have only "spent" £3.90 on my new Tesco PAYG and that was including two 35p premium texts to try to win a radio-station holiday