Got O2 down £12 a month

jpjp_2

Needed a new handset on my wife's pay-monthly phone. She has a very basic phone, just needs to make (lots of) business calls and have bluetooth to plumb it into the car for hands-free when driving. O2 told me I had to set a new tariff too, which forced me into looking at those too

Heavy business use, last month's bill was 941 min and recent months were all over 750 min. Nearest from O2 was 900 min whcih looked good until I was told that extra minutes over that were, 30P PER MINUTE. Gulp. So if I went for a 900 min contract, then those extra 41 minutes last month would be an extra £12.30 whereas moving up to a 1200 minute tariff was only £5/month more than 900 min. So moving up to a 1200 tariff would be a no brainer

Called off, went away and did my research. Starting point this website, of course Wanted basic phone, 1200 min, loads of texts and no interest in internet surfing Megabytes. Comparison was current provider O2 at £41 a month or Vodafone at £31/month, both offering unlimited texts. That would be some saving £10/month

Phoned up after re-reading MSE advice about Disconnections Dept really being called "Customer Retention" and how to approach the call etc. Good advice!

RESULT - £29, a saving of £12 a month, or saving of £288 over 24 months. The actual contract they did was a 900 min one with an extra 200 min thrown in and all O2-to-O2 calls free, plus a new basic handset. So 1100 min not 1200, which is fine (see above) and a new phone and O2-to-O2 calls free. :D:D

Penalties - tied in 24 months (no bother to us), and gave up a few extra minutes to appease the guy by listening to his blurb about O2 doing broadband. You didn't think I was going to go for their broadband package too? Possibly, but that's by separate negotiation on another day! Ha!

Thank you Martin and team!

everett_psycho

If your an o2 customer their broadband is actually one of the cheapest and best around (if you live in a LLU area that doesn't get virgin medias fibre optics).

It's probably too late but did you consider giving tesco a try? They use the o2 network and seem to have very good offers like this:

http://phone-shop.tesco.com/tesco-mobile/simonly/deals/da22d9d0-ca28-482f-874c-a21f965fdb67?CarouselType=NetworkTopSIMOnlyCarousel&Type=SimCard

cheap contract + cheap sim free phone and you got some savings

grumbler

Do I understand correctly that the starting price was £41 and the final one was £41-£12=£29?

If it's correct, you could have simply migrated to giffgaff (the same network) that offer 1500+unltd+unltd for £25 without any ties and with unlimited calls to giffgaff.

1000+unltd+1Gb costs £18 p.m. from talkmobile - again without any ties.

Don't know what basic handset you have got from O2 but the most basic ones (unlocked) are available for 1p-£10 from CPW and daughter companies.
Nokia C1-01 with bluetooth is £8.90+£10 with £7ish cashback and you can sell unwanted sim with credit.

jpjp_2

everett_psycho -> good idea but I actively limit my spend at Tesco. [spit..] "Every Little Hurts" and all that

grumbler -> I have other reasons to stay with O2. A good part of this is the network quality in the places I frequent, which includes some out-of-the-way places like deepest Cumbria - I can always compare O2 with Vodafone as my work mobile is on the latter. The number of complaints I hear from people on other networks makes me very wary of moving away from O2 or Vodafone.

My approach to money-saving is not to go all-out for the lowest price, I balance price and quality. I'd sooner buy reduced items in Waitrose than the same items at original price in Tesco Value range, even if the former is still a bit more expensive

I actually thought a saving of £288 was pretty good, but no congrats so far Plus the 30p a minute thing needs flagging up again and again.

grumbler

As I said, giffgaff is effectively O2 because they use the same network and the same signal.
So do Tesco where 1250+5000+1Gb is available for £20.
And no long contracts at both.

This explains lack of congratulations on this board where long contracts are not liked even when they come with expensive phones. 24 months with a basic handset looks like a rip off.
Let's face it: you could have done much better.

ioscorpio

If you don't mind redeption deals, you could have got 3000 mins for £3.44 a month and Quidco / TCB on top.

http://www.somobile.co.uk/deals/

T_T_2

Wow they saw you coming

Cheesedoodles

Giffgaff is actually owned by O2.....:)

Best pay as you go deal there is! 8p a minute to landlines/mobiles...free to other giffgaffers..and 8p as well for international (EU) calls!!! Can't beat it.

everett_psycho

grumbler wrote: »

As I said, giffgaff is effectively O2 because they use the same network and the same signal.
So do Tesco where 1250+5000+1Gb is available for £20.
And no long contracts at both.

This explains lack of congratulations on this board where long contracts are not liked even when they come with expensive phones. 24 months with a basic handset looks like a rip off.
Let's face it: you could have done much better.

This is my sentiments exactly. I like having a decent phone but don't use ridiculous amounts of minutes, i did the maths when i upgraded 2 years ago i could save a fortune buying my phone sim free for £350, it's worked out that i pay £25 less per month for which over 2 years adds up to £600 saving (£250 up if you factor in the handset cost). I'm looking to upgrade again and if i want the samsung galaxy S2 I figure the break even point for me is a £29 p/m contract, anything over and i'm saving cash buying sim free and sticking with tesco. Plus if a cheaper better deal does come along on sim only I can tell tesco where to go and jump over there as i'm only on 30 days notice :T

As for reception, i was on O2 and moved to tesco and live in a house with really bad signal on everyone but o2 and vodafone, my tesco sim works as good as my o2 one ever did at under half the price, plus i get clubcard points on all my bills. Well done for haggling O2 down but i think there's better deals to be got on other operators that use their masts.

Dollardog

grumbler wrote: »

Do I understand correctly that the starting price was £41 and the final one was £41-£12=£29?

If it's correct, you could have simply migrated to giffgaff (the same network) that offer 1500+unltd+unltd for £25 without any ties and with unlimited calls to giffgaff.

1000+unltd+1Gb costs £18 p.m. from talkmobile - again without any ties.

Don't know what basic handset you have got from O2 but the most basic ones (unlocked) are available for 1p-£10 from CPW and daughter companies.
Nokia C1-01 with bluetooth is £8.90+£10 with £7ish cashback and you can sell unwanted sim with credit.

Please can you tell me how to get these from CPW for this price please? I have not seen them that cheap - mind you, I hate CPW!!

I look like having to get a new phone although I really don't want to have to get rid of my old one. Its a Nokia 6288, I know its old and I know its only a basic phone, but that is really all I want, just a phone to be able to make calls and send texts.
A few days ago though, the screen started going blank or distorting the images, sometimes it came up with the screen upside down, then righted itself. I phoned Nokia who got me to restore it to the factory settings, as the fault was intermittent, it seemed to cure it for a littlr while, but its gradually got worse and now won't switch on at all. I can get an upgrade from Vodafone but it means paying more per month and getting a phone I don't really want. Nokia suggested trying to re-install the software using Nokia Suite, I haven't tried it yet as I can't find my usb cable to connect it to my laptop and won't be able to connect it via Bluetooth as the screen won't come on at all now. I preferably want to be able to back it up via the Nokia pc suite if I can. There is an article on their website discussion about how to do it if you can't get the screen to work.
Has anyone else had similar problems with their phone having blank screen? and was it repairable?

TIA

bobstheboy

I am happy with my retention deal.

HTC Mozart on a 24 months contract with 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 500 MB data for £18. I also get a reduction of £5 a month off my Legacy Broadband, which I renewed in February at £18 a month, free for the first six months (12 months package).

I am sure this will dissected and ridiculed by the "experts" but I am happy !!!