Best Sim-only Deals guide Discussion

brookhouse

Curls2208 said:

£8 a month (obviously having to sort cashback) for 100gb of tetherable data, and a network that works. I recently joined 3 and it was god awful, useless useless no signal anywhere. 

I had an unlimited data deal for £8 a month, so admittedly, slightly better, but 100gb is pretty much unlimited in my eyes anyway.  I was dual simming it with my Vodafone sim, and in places on Vodafone where I could get 4G, on 3 I was getting E or H. 

Ah OK. I missed how the cashback works. Tedious to claim though. Only showing as 60GB for me, although I don't use that much data.
I've had Three as a second SIM and agree signal poor in places, and struggled roaming in Germany last year (not a problem at the moment!).
My main SIM is EE - good signal for me in the places I go, but less competitive now. I am out of contract and haven't tried to negotiate yet.
I may try a Vodafone MVNO (Voxi or Lebara) for a couple of months to see how their signal hold up.

catscaroline

No one seems to mention thephone.coop which is an ethical provider and has been going a long time, I have been with them over 8 years on pay as you go and only have light usage, £10 lasts me over a year sometimes, pay as you go is excellent, you can top up £10 and it lasts as long as you want it, no cut off. They also have excellent bundles - lots of them from £5 including data etc. pay as you go prices are 8p for texts, 8p for calls and 4p to other coop mobiles.

Farway

catscaroline said:

No one seems to mention thephone.coop which is an ethical provider and has been going a long time, I have been with them over 8 years on pay as you go and only have light usage, £10 lasts me over a year sometimes, pay as you go is excellent, you can top up £10 and it lasts as long as you want it, no cut off. They also have excellent bundles - lots of them from £5 including data etc. pay as you go prices are 8p for texts, 8p for calls and 4p to other coop mobiles.

There is a cut off if not used.

However to give Co-op their due they told me I needed to make a call or lose the credit & number

gropinginthedark

A satisfied user of iD (part of 3) for a few years until yesterday.
I'd suggested my lad switch to iD from the expensive service he'd been on.  He thought he'd be smart and instead of iD's £6 pay monthly 2GB data with roll-over (and more sms/phone than anyone needs) he'd go a £15 PAYG deal from iD.  After a month it stopped working despite very low usage. 
We've both had PAYG in the past and expect it to work until the balance gets low then top-up, in fact my secondary SIM is PAYG, it's probably a year since last top-up and it still works.  
Support said "PAYG expires after a month" and that he couldn't convert that SIM to Pay Monthly. So he ordered a Pay Monthly SIM from iD but found it wouldn't let him transfer the number to that either. Support said "not possible, the only way to do that is get a sim from another provider, transfer the number from PAYG to that then transfer the number from the new card back to iD on the pay monthly SIM".
Support guy also said it would be possible if he switched to a 24 month pay-monthly contract.  (Could support guys be on an incentive scheme to push that lock-in?)
He found a deal he likes on Vodaphone so will be switching away from iD, if that works out OK and in view of this event me and wife will be following him.

• Is the new normal that PAYG means expires after a month?
• Is it normal that the service associated with a sim can't be changed? is it the same with other providers?
• Is it normal that a number can't be transferred between sims if both are from the same provider?

johnwb89

I've spent ages haggling with Vodafone and best I can get is 40gb for £14pm for 18 months. Doesn't really strike me as much of a deal so I'm looking elsewhere! 

Donegal_Paul

brookhouse said:

Donegal_Paul said:

JDE-UK said:

I don't know if anyone's seen, but the £10 Voxi deal has gone from 8GB of data to 12GB, so looking like a better offer now. Runs until 25th June.

Yes I was looking at doing this via the referrer link for the amazon vouchers, problem is Im on vodaphone so they wont do it :-(

I think it's probably one of the best offers around £10 at the moment.
Do you have a referral from a friend? Do they spot you are porting your number from Vodafone withhold the voucher then?
You could port to Lebara for a month and then to Voxi!

Sorry for the delay, didn't get a notification for some reason. Basically yes they wont do the referral / amazon voucher going straight from one to another, I was told that basically it would have to be a new number completely, so even if i could be bothered to go to lebara for a month and then back its too much hassle. 
Oh referrer was a referal link from here. 

buglawton

nic_c said:

Fat_Lilz said:

I wanted to draw to your attention a flaw in the Smarty SIM-only deal that was recommended by MSE. It was the £10/month for 30GB data option. I bought this, and then found out that the 'no frills' approach means that you cannot send or receive 'premium rate' text messages. This would be fine, expect that also includes verification texts sent from your bank, which are very important. It doesn't make this clear anywhere, so just be wary. I am going to switch network providers after less than a month with Smarty. Thank goodness it is only a one-month contract.

Well I'm on Smarty and receive verification texts from my bank and credit cards fine. For premium messages you would obviously need to put some credit on your account - smarty is a PAYG so you need credit for those. I don't have any credit on, which is a bonus because I don't receive spam premium texts that cost me, but as stated I do receive bank texts like one-time pass codes without hitch.

Thought so.

[Deleted User]

I've noticed on MSE there is a great deal from Lebara of 8gb for £7.99 per month.

Anyone know if this is the price ongoing or just the first month's introductory price?

brookhouse

nerox said:

I've noticed on MSE there is a great deal from Lebara of 8gb for £7.99 per month.

Anyone know if this is the price ongoing or just the first month's introductory price?

It'll be the same each month although may go up with the RPI (inflationary change each year) at some point. It's a rolling monthly contract so easy to leave if they mess about.

dreamypuma

Sad times. My 12 months 50% discount with Sky Mobile ends this month. They just won't budge an the best they will give me is between 10 and 30% off depending on the tariff I select. (Doesn't sound like the discount can be moved between tariffs either)

After paying £3 per month for 3GB and unlimited calls & SMS for the last year, I might need to jump ship to Plusnet. 

Anyone had their 50% discount renewed this recently?