Early Vodafone Upgrades

tonymc

In late Novembet last year, I contacted Vodafone regarding upgrading my daughters phone, and was advised that she could be upgraded 6 months from the end of the existing contract (due to finish end Aug so could upgrade from end Feb).

When I logged in to check somehing on the account the other day, I noticed that the upgrade date was showing May, so I queried this with Vodafone, who apparently have now withdrawn the 6 month upgrade option.

The plan was to arrange an upgrade for my daughters birthday in March, but it looks as if this won't be possible. Just wondering if anyone else has had any success recently with upgrading more than 3 months in advance?

The only option I can see is to cancel the account with Vodafone (at a cost of around £70) then take out a contract with another provider (hopefully via a cashback website to offset the cancellation charges). I did also look at some schemes where you get cashback on submission of your bills, but judging by the number of posts about these conpanies and problems people are having, I wouldn't be that keen on subjecting myself to all that hassle.

Thanks.

tonymc

Coincidentally, have now just found this thread posted today on the same subject - would still be interested though if anyone has managed to keep the 8 month upgrade option since they changed/ withdrew this option.

gjchester

Any early upgrade offer is not really a get out they add the term onto the end of the contract terms so on the OP's case your 18 month contract would become a 24 month one and a 24 month one a 30 month one.

tonymc

Thanks for the info. I guess it's a case of whether Vodafone would let me upgrade and only pay the difference between the two contracts up to the end of the existing agreement (August), or if the two contracts would be "stacked" for the final 6 months i.e. paying both contract monthly costs.

chanz4

Would it be cheaper to just by a simfree phone?

tonymc

I have looked at buying simfree, but am after a Blackberry 9360 which is around the £230 mark, plus an appropriate SIM card and plan around another £15/month. As I noted earlier, I guess that I could cancel th eexisting Vodafone contract (takes off the 20% VAT on the six outstanding months) and then get another rental with an upfromt cashback payment to offset the early termination with Vodafone.

barncopxx

Exactly the same has happened to me. My account said I could upgrade from 13th February. When I looked last week it has now changed to 23rd May. I rang Vodafone to query this and was told that there was a technical problem with the website and the 13th February was wrong!!! I told them to expect my termination in May!

gjchester

barncopxx wrote: »

Exactly the same has happened to me. My account said I could upgrade from 13th February. When I looked last week it has now changed to 23rd May. I rang Vodafone to query this and was told that there was a technical problem with the website and the 13th February was wrong!!! I told them to expect my termination in May!

??? Early upgrades are at the networks discression and usually pretyt poor, as they know if you say no then you cn;t leave anyway as you have 3 months to run. The offers usually are pretty poor.

You could not get out early and if you took the upgrade any remaining contract would be added on to you existing one.

All you have lost is the ability to get a new shiny toy 3 months earlier than usualy, for a higher than usualy cost, and the contract would be longer on the new phone too..

barncopxx

gjchester wrote: »

??? Early upgrades are at the networks discression and usually pretyt poor, as they know if you say no then you cn;t leave anyway as you have 3 months to run. The offers usually are pretty poor.

You could not get out early and if you took the upgrade any remaining contract would be added on to you existing one.

All you have lost is the ability to get a new shiny toy 3 months earlier than usualy, for a higher than usualy cost, and the contract would be longer on the new phone too..

This is one of those classic cases where you post thinking you are helping the OP and you get idiots like this one reply. For your information I am on a sim only contract so there is NO "new shiny toy" as you put it. I was originally told that I could upgrade after 6 months but that was changed without telling me. That's all I was saying. It was the lies told to me by Vodafone that prompted me to say that I will be leaving in May.:mad:

gjchester

barncopxx wrote: »

This is one of those classic cases where you post thinking you are helping the OP and you get idiots like this one reply. For your information I am on a sim only contract so there is NO "new shiny toy" as you put it. I was originally told that I could upgrade after 6 months but that was changed without telling me. That's all I was saying. It was the lies told to me by Vodafone that prompted me to say that I will be leaving in May.:mad:

If your Sim Only there is no upgrade possible only a renewal or taking out a new contract to get a phone. You may have a termination date for the SIM only but that is not an upgrade.

As I said early upgrades have always been at the discression of the network, it's never been a right.

A techncial fault is not a lie. You were told it was error, have lost nothing and any other network will be exactly the same.

tonymc

gjchester wrote: »

All you have lost is the ability to get a new shiny toy 3 months earlier than usualy, for a higher than usualy cost, and the contract would be longer on the new phone too..

My only problem is that the upgrade is for my daughter who wants her new phone yesterday