12 month free line rental deals to bag phone

jimbojetson

Hi

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this before. There are loads of 12-month free line rental deals out there now, some with pretty nice phones. What's to stop me getting one of these on, say, Orange, and then buying an Orange SIM for £1 to use it as a PAYG phone?

I wouldn't have to unlock it. And I can claim the cashback on all the line rental.

Have others done this successfully and are there any pitfalls?

JJ

redux

Welcome

Most contract deals have plenty of minutes included, and even when they are used up further charges may still be lower than PAYG

jimbojetson

Hi Redux

I don't think I made myself clear, sorry for that. I meant could this be done purely for the purpose of bagging a nice phone for free to use on PAYG?

JJ

Alltheloginsaretakenappar

There's nothing to stop you using a PAYG SIM. But as Redux pointed out it might not be the best option

Alltheloginsaretakenappar

A lot of people take up these offers to resell the phone on ebay if that's what you're getting at

Whatever you do with the phone, there can be some risk involved in cashback deals (search this forum for advice on which dealers are reputable and where people have been caught out by unclear cashback claim procedures) so if you've actually used the contract and call allowance it would soften the blow if you somehow don't get the cashback

Mobile_Mole

Alltheloginsaretakenappar wrote:

There's nothing to stop you using a PAYG SIM. But as Redux pointed out it might not be the best option

Exactly. Why would you want to pay for calls and SMS using PAYG when you will get a healthy allowance of minutes and SMS on the 12 month contract you are entering into and so could effectively pay nothing for the whole year?

Cheers
Mark
Mobile Mole

jimbojetson

Exactly. Why would you want to pay for calls and SMS using PAYG when you will get a healthy allowance of minutes and SMS on the 12 month contract you are entering into and so could effectively pay nothing for the whole year?

I text quite a lot and I like the 300 free texts on Orange PAYG for a £10 top-up. None of the 12-month deals look that great for texts and I would end up paying quite a lot. Plus I want a new phone!

JJ

PinkPig

The answer to your question is yes, you can do that, as long as the phone you get can be unlocked (and just about any of them can, fairly cheaply).

You'll probably be able to find a deal with quite a few free texts though, look around before assuming that PAYG is the way to go.

Raja_3

Another point to remember is that most of these are Cashback deals. You will still pay the network the full cost in line rental every month (e.g £30 for 200 minutes). You then reclaim the line rental in stages throughout the year via redemption vouchers.

Remember your not getting a free sim card and free phone.

poopscoop

Raja wrote:

Another point to remember is that most of these are Cashback deals. You will still pay the network the full cost in line rental every month (e.g £30 for 200 minutes). You then reclaim the line rental in stages throughout the year via redemption vouchers.

Remember your not getting a free sim card and free phone.

I think he already knows that

jimbojetson wrote:

I wouldn't have to unlock it. And I can claim the cashback on all the line rental.

Mobile_Mole

jimbojetson wrote:

I text quite a lot and I like the 300 free texts on Orange PAYG for a £10 top-up. None of the 12-month deals look that great for texts and I would end up paying quite a lot. Plus I want a new phone!

Deals with 12 months free line rental and this allowance of SMS do exist but these are currently limited to the '3' network.

Both Cool New Mobile and Phonebox Direct offer the following deal. I am not going to post links as I personally don't recommend these retailers. The details are easy enough to find on their websites.

Handset: LG 8360 or Ministry of Sound MOS-1
Tariff: '3' Video, Talk and Text 1100 (600 mins, 400 SMS)
Monthly cost: £45
Cashback deal: 12 months free line rental


Cheers
Mark
Mobile Mole