O2 Upgrade Tarrifs

Jibbyc

Hi guys, first time posting on here so sorry if I do anything I shouldnt!
I'm just gonna write out my situation,
Basically, my 24 month contract with O2 is coming to an end (sony xperia p, which is now broken due to a fault of my own, but that's not important) in the middle of august. I have the option to upgrade a month early, which would be in the middle of July.

The phone I'm after is either a sony z1, or z1 compact.

After doing a bit of research online, I realised that o2 were not particularly competitive with some of the competitors. (O2s tariffs for 2gbs of data would end up in excess of £900, whereas I could get a phone and goodybag deal with giff gaff and save near enough £300 (and even more if I buy the phone off eBay).

I went into my local o2 store and talk to one of the people there, who after hearing what I had to say, advised me to ring up the customer services and talk to them as that store is a franchise and can't deviate from the set tariffs, but they should be able to.

So after ringing up the o2 customer services thrice and speaking to 3 different people, they told me that I would need to buy out of the rest of my contract (which i'm happy to do, as my phone is broken and it'd be saving me money anyway really), but then told me that I couldn't get anything other than the deals that are online and are generally available until my last month of my contract (so from the middle of July onwards)

So here are my viable options (as far as I can see):

1. Wait the time, upgrade early and see what they have available.

2. Ditch O2, get a phone from ebay/giff gaff, then use the goodybags

3. Buy a phone off ebay, get the upgrade for the most expensive phone I can for the cheapest I can, sell the phone and keep the sim for my ebay-phone.


Tl;dr / summary

My questions are:

1. Seeing as O2 wouldn't give me an idea of what tariffs I could potentially get, does anyone have any idea what tariffs I could haggle for / would be on offer if I waited till the end of my contract?

2. Are the BNIB phones from japan actually alright?

3. Is the third option above viable?


Thanks!

Ben

rejsystems

1. You could terminate early and pay the early exit fees o2 would then be in a position to offer you retention packages. They can't tell you what will be available at the end of your contract because the market is so fluid and subject to change.

2. BNIB means Brand New In Box AFAIK (as far as I know ) nothing to do with the origin.

3. From what you've said o2 are overpricing the phones so you would be unlikely to get a return on your investment, but then again they MIGHT come back with a great offer but you'll be tied in for another 24 months.

From a personal point of view I think sim only is the way to go, when it comes to buying phones ebay worries me. You have to rely on the seller being honest which to be fair most are but there are bad apples. I wouldn't risk a large purchase on ebay to an individual seller.

One of the best place to find good deals for phones is https://www.hotukdeals.com

Here's a Z1 search for you http://www.hotukdeals.com/search?action=search&keywords=z1

nidO

Just to throw a fourth option into the mix, you could always go and speak to carphone warehouse and phones4u to ask about their O2 upgrade deals - My recent experience with phones4u and O2 upgrades is that they've been able to offer deals that are a fair bit better than what O2 can do themselves, and there's no downside to upgrading through them rather than O2 direct.