Three - am I just expecting too much?

movvy

Hello,

A couple of years ago I joined Three mobile, along with my wife. Fed up with Orange, and attracted by all-you-can-eat data, we picked up two (at the time) flagship phones with all-you-can-eat data, 500 minutes each, and 5000 texts; free handsets, the Galaxy s4 and the HTC One, for £33 and £31 per month respectively.

So, upgrade time rolls around and I've been looking forward to seeing what new flagships could be had. I expected to pay a bit more this time around, but I was quite disappointed with what Three offered.

Getting through to cancellation/retentions produced a slightly better result but nothing that blew my socks off. Is there any way to crack this nut, or is this just the way the market is at the moment?

For reference, I was offered after 3 phone calls and much haggling:


A HTC One M9 with 4gb data, unlimited minutes/texts for £37 amonth and a £30 upfront cost.

A Galaxy Note 4 with unlimited data/minutes/texts for £40 a month and a £60 upfront cost.

These were peddled as 'exclusve' deals. They would not consider matching online deals via dealer sites, and they would not consider reducing the minutes (which I don't need unlimited of) to reduce the cost. The packages are offered as fixed usage/fixed price.

I'm not sure what I expected really; but I thought I might do better than the above. Has anyone else had much luck?

gjchester

movvy wrote: »

I'm not sure what I expected really; but I thought I might do better than the above. Has anyone else had much luck?

Loyalty counts for nothing, its all about spend. If they mane a reasonable profit form you they will offer you a deal to sleep you, if they don't then they will happily see you go.

There probably a similar number of people leaving and people joining any given network at anyone time to not make a huge difference to the bottom line.

movvy

Disappointing. I was on the receiving end of this with Orange two years ago. I somehow thought Three would be different.

Problem is that I have a Signal box with them, I am a heavy data user (or, to put it another way, I do use more than any other network can provide me with on a per month basis), and I have no real complaints with the service I've received over the last two years (unlike my experience with Orange).

So they are ticking boxes. Just not all of the boxes.

Some of the upgrades they offered me were side grades at best!

sharp910sh

Three have no competition, as they are the only network which offer unlimited data. If you are happy with their unlimited daya you will have to pay for it. I am in the exact same situation with the s4 but to get the same contract with the s6 64gb costs 52 quid a month 49 upfront.

I've decided to go with vodafone, 44 quid a month, cashback of 196 quid and nothing upfront for 10gb data and unlimited everything else.

I also have a signal box, but I think I will have to buy a vodafone signal box in the end as signal is very weak in my house.

Supatramp

I would have thought the solution was pretty simple. Go SIM only and buy the handset you want.

You have to remember, there's no such thing as a free lunch!

And the best of luck with VF, I hope you're not in Scotland. I think VF thinks we're already independent and now class us as a foreign country. The service/signal/connection is abysmal.