Is the OVP (Orange Value Promise) dead?

DonnyDave

redux wrote: »

On top of that, as mentioned above (though I think Dave may have it wrong as the Virgin site says 40p for the DD funded version) Virgin itself abandonned its original tariff, not only no longer offering it as a new deal, but also putting up the tariff for the people already on it.

See the Virgin Mobile Pay as you Go page.

Under the heading "Pay As You Go by Direct Debit" it does indeed list 40 pence per minute at all times for all mobiles (Virgin and others) and landlines. I hadn't noticed this as was referring to the pre-pay service. They don't half penalise people on this direct debit tariff!

The table above above that one is for "Original Pay As You Go" which lists 21 pence per minute for the first five minutes and 6 pence per minute thereafter. Is this still available? At the top of the page it says:

All our new Pay As You Go customers get our Starter tariff. Once you've topped up for the first time, you can choose one of our best ever value tariffs: Big Data & Texts or Big Talk. If you joined Virgin Mobile on or before 13th October 2012, then you can move onto one of our Big tariffs if you like. Have a look at our call costs below to help you decide

DonnyDave

redux wrote: »

But is it actually closing down? Some people are talking as though it is, but I assume they are the ones still using it as their main phone. Someone who only spends on it occasionally could probably keep going, I'm assuming unless someone says no they're all being disconnected

No. Those on it aren't having their accounts closed.

Rates are changing. 25 pence per minute to all mobiles and landlines. 25 pence minimum charge. 15 pence texts.

According to the letter, this is to bring it in line with "other plans".

DonnyDave

Orange pay as you go call rates went up on 14 March. See orange.co.uk/payasyougoguide.

Monkey, Dolphin and Canary have all gone up from 25ppm to 30ppm.

Raccoon is 14ppm, having previously increased from 12ppm.

This is yet another example of a big player in the market moving towards bundles by penalising those who don't use them.

Stuart_W

The original Virgin Pay As You Go by Direct Debit tariff remains even worse than the prices the Orange OVP equivalent has just increased to.

For some time, Virgin have been charging 40p per minute for all calls :eek:and 15p per minute for all texts. Orange could have decided to copy this.

http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/genericContent.do?contentId=payasyougo.tariff.howdoi.sm286#Pay As You Go by Direct Debit

None of the major players want small users, especially those on monthly billing collecting a small payment of a few pence each month.

DonnyDave

Stuart_W wrote: »

None of the major players want small users, especially those on monthly billing collecting a small payment of a few pence each month.

Plus the fact that, as businesses, they prefer to increase security on their income revenues by drawing customers into contracts.

With pay as you go (or pay as you use) customers' spends varies and isn't guaranteed in the future, which is what they don't like.

Roger1

Stuart_W wrote: »

Pick up a free Orange SIM just to keep for this purpose if you want to benefit from Orange Wednesdays.

Thanks for your several answers. I admire the logic of getting another SIM.

I haven't used Orange Wednesdays for a while - due to choice of films though I think the 35p text charge is rather high for a 'free' service and the online request no longer seems to work - but a free SIM would presumably let me use Dial-a-code prefixes for 3p/minute international calls. Nice idea.

NFH

DonnyDave wrote: »

Plus the fact that, as businesses, they prefer to increase security on their income revenues by drawing customers into contracts.

With pay as you go (or pay as you use) customers' spends varies and isn't guaranteed in the future, which is what they don't like.

Surely it's better for Orange to retain this revenue, albeit small, than needlessly to lose the revenue to competitors.

redux

DonnyDave wrote: »

I don't expect something for nothing. In effect, the extra 10 pence per minute on the first five minutes was the line rental.

It could be worked around slightly.

Other calls not starting at 15p would still count towards the qualifying first 5 minutes a day.

So a call to an 0845 number could actually be beneficial. And there were a couple of callthrough providers which used to offer calls to landlines via 0845 numbers, which of course weren't going to get much other use. And more oddly, 0845 calls also dropped to 5p after 5 minutes.

So half the extra 10p a minute could be saved as long as the first call a day was to a landline.

Too late for this advice now ...

J_B

DonnyDave wrote: »

Rates are changing. 25 pence per minute to all mobiles and landlines. 25 pence minimum charge. 15 pence texts.

Am I right in therefore thinking that texts whilst roaming in Europe will then be cheaper than at home???

NFH

J_B wrote: »

Am I right in therefore thinking that texts whilst roaming in Europe will then be cheaper than at home???

Yes, but that's the case on many tariffs now, not only on this one. The same even applies to outgoing calls in some cases.