Haggling power of new PM customer

pennanbeach

After several years of PAYG, mainly on cheap basic phones, I'm looking to go back to contract. A lot of the stories on this forum about getting great deals seems to come from peoples dealings with the retention department when their contract is due to expire. Do new customers get similar treatment if they hold out for a better deal than advertised?

Additionally, would I have any extra sway shopping for two phones at the same time, either both contract or one contract one payg? I'd like to replace my wifes phone at the same time as my own.

My only hangup is that we are both very light users, between us we must spent about £80 a year or topups, however, we have an ipod touch which gets the most use both in the house and at openzone/fon hopspots where it becomes our main means of communication. I'd like to do away with having to carry both this and a mobile and thought that a smartphone would get a lot of use from us, although even on a cheap monthly deal it would increase our annual spend.

Neither one of us uses our phone much for voice calls, I'd estimate that we could both survive on 100mins a month. A big internet allowance is my main shopping point and the ability for my wife and I to call each other cheaply/free would be a plus. With so many of the contracts chucking hundreds of minutes and thousands of texts at customers, is there room to maneuverer by sacrificing this allowance for a cheaper monthly price, or will the mobile operators not be interested in someone who will be such a light user?

Oh, and does anyone have any experience using an apple peel to transform an ipod touch into a pseudo iphone? Thought this might be an answer to my problems.

Many thanks for any help/advice anyone can offer.

Gareth

Guys_Dad

Short answer is "No", unless your PAYG provider has built up a "Credit Bank" for you.

Your best bet is to go via Topcashback to a cashback reseller and follow the procedures to the letter, keeping a watching eye on this forum for cashback pitfalls, current experiences etc.

Actually, sim-free is the best financial contract you can get. In my opinion of course!

jessmist

Hi,
I got my son a htc wildfire from phones 4 u on the o2 network and then put in a tesco sim.
The phone is great and tesco sim only deals are great value in my opinion and they use o2 network so the coverage is good.
Have a look here
http://www.phones4u.co.uk/shop/shop_payg_details.asp?ItemKey=435468

http://phone-shop.tesco.com/tesco-mobile/sims/

MorrisonsEmployee

If you are with Orange PAYG you get £1 back for every £10 you have topped up over the past 18 months towards a new handset/contract.

[Deleted User]

@MorrisonsEmployee - it's the past 12-15 months

Remember... Morrisons Employees get 25% off contract monthly line rental by taking a payslip into the orange shop when signing up or renewing

in_the_Cotswolds

Could always get Blackberrys and use Blackberry Messenger doesn't come out of your text allowance so you could go for more minutes less texts.

jayme1

mechanic wrote: »

Could always get Blackberrys and use Blackberry Messenger doesn't come out of your text allowance so you could go for more minutes less texts.

or on the same train of thought just buy a cheap smartphone (something like the orange SF, or SE x10 mini pro) then just buy a cheap data addon every month then use email.

OP are you sure pay monthly is the right way to go?

infact if you buy the HTC wildfire on 3 mobile PAYG, the phone has the 3 skype app (this will cover your voice calls to each other),
then each month add the 500MB data add-on (for £5, so £60 a year), and use the phone to send as many push emails to each other as you need (gmail is the best email to use since it is an android phone),
and (this is the best bit) with android 2.2 on the wildfire you get wifi hotspot, this means you can share the 500MB add-on from the phone using wifi to your ipod touch, for whatever reason,
though you will want to use the wildfire for email as it will recieve (gmail) as push and would be always connected.

best thing is you are not locked into a contract at all.

M4RKM

The new tariffs from talkmobile might suit you perfectly, as these include internet, texts, and some of the tariffs have a small amount of minutes.

For example the HTC Desire S (latest handset), on a 12 month contract with TalkMobile, gives you 200 minutes, 1000 texts, unlimited internet, and the handset is £179.99.

You could go for a 24 month contract, where you get 300 minutes, 1000 texts, unlimited internet, and the handset being £89.99 if the initial outlay is too much. Your monthly contract is then £18.00 per month.

This is just one handset out of many that are on these new tariffs. Prices from e2save, and there is £46 cashback available on quidco.

M

jbainbridge

I'd been on Orange PAYG for years and was surprised at the quite good offers when I received from them when I rang up to leave.

I ended up ringing Vodafone and getting them to do a better deal than their own website (this was better that going via TopCashback).

If you are looking for 2 phones, Vodadone offer a 'household' discount of £5/mth.

pennanbeach

Many thanks to all who replied, its given me lots to think about. Extra thanks to jayme1 and M4RKM, I think this is good advice. Seems like especially with HTC Wildfire, there are a lot of cheap contracts to be had, and the San Francisco would be a good cheap PAYG option.

Part of my trouble is that there isn't much consistency to my usage. For weeks at a time I'll never need a phone other than for a couple of texts and a 'I'll be a bit late' type calls. However, because of my job I'll suddenly have to travel at short notice for an indeterminate length of time, where I would like call/text allowance, as well as wifi/3g access to the internet.

Given that it seems like new customers don't get anything special on PM, I may forgo a huge bells & whistles phone for something more modest which can still meet my needs without tripling (or worse) my annual spend.

Gareth

jayme1

pennanbeach wrote: »

Part of my trouble is that there isn't much consistency to my usage. For weeks at a time I'll never need a phone other than for a couple of texts and a 'I'll be a bit late' type calls. However, because of my job I'll suddenly have to travel at short notice for an indeterminate length of time, where I would like call/text allowance, as well as wifi/3g access to the internet.

that's similar to me, some months I know I won't require data so I dont bother buying an add-on as soon as last months runs out, then when I need it I buy the add-on, then I have a choice, if I only need data for a day or 2 I just buy a 24hr addon for 50p for 120MB a day, if I know I will need it for a longer time I will buy the 30day add-on. (the 30days starts from when you buy it, it doesn't run in calendar month cycles, not sure if other networks do this.)
this is on 3 mobile.

as for your calls, well it depends who your calling, on 3 mobile skype is always free regardless of if you have topped up, but you can always just use your normal credit if you cant call them using skype, it would most of the time work out cheaper than a contract.

actually you can use the IM feature in skype for free so you could even use that as a sudo text msg instead of email.