Best Sim-only Deals guide Discussion

alanjones60

SH88SH88 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

If the problem with Tesco Mobile is NOT that it runs on O2, then what about Sky Mobile @ £1/mth? It's a PAYM so does mean a contract but you get unlimited calls/texts (& 1GB of unwanted data).

Piggybacking on O2 is/would be OK, my problem with TM is abysmal customer service. Please forgive my ignorance,  but what is the catch with Sky £1 per month...? Would I be able to renew again in 12 months?  ... Do old-school PAYG deals still exist anywhere ?

02 themselves do classic pay as you go.
3p min 2p text 1p mb.
Make a call every 6 months to keep sim alive.
No monthly top up required, just top up when credit is low.

And customer service on facebook messenger is the best,problems solved right away, even gave me a call back when they said they would.

02 do not sell this sim anymore, but plenty availible on e bay for 20p and free postage

flaneurs_lobster

SH88SH88 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

If the problem with Tesco Mobile is NOT that it runs on O2, then what about Sky Mobile @ £1/mth? It's a PAYM so does mean a contract but you get unlimited calls/texts (& 1GB of unwanted data).

Piggybacking on O2 is/would be OK, my problem with TM is abysmal customer service. Please forgive my ignorance,  but what is the catch with Sky £1 per month...? Would I be able to renew again in 12 months?  ... Do old-school PAYG deals still exist anywhere ?

Not sure there's a catch, their promo says it's a reduction to the usual £3/mth deal. I've taken it and used it as a backup eSIM on my main phone, worked just fine, no admin probs but I didn't need to do any PAC processing. 

I'd be very surprised if this deal was available on renewal (or even if a price rise forced a cancel) but not an issue for me - your need to keep a number may make this problematic.

Re: proper PAYG - rare to non-existent. If you really don't want to make calls so don't care about high call rates then Three, Vodafone, O2 will all give you a SIM that will take £10 to activate/top-up. They will set you up with a recurring monthly payment - turn it off. Ditto Giffgaff, Asda (£5). 

VoucherMan

alanjones60 said:

02 themselves do classic pay as you go.
3p min 2p text 1p mb.
Make a call every 6 months to keep sim alive.
No monthly top up required, just top up when credit is low.

And customer service on facebook messenger is the best,problems solved right away, even gave me a call back when they said they would.

02 do not sell this sim anymore, but plenty availible on e bay for 20p and free postage

Just a warning. I bought a couple of those last year, and there was an 'expiry' date for them to be activated; sometime in July I think.
That said, I stuck it in the phone a few days ago & it's working okay.

SH88SH88

alanjones60 said:

SH88SH88 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

If the problem with Tesco Mobile is NOT that it runs on O2, then what about Sky Mobile @ £1/mth? It's a PAYM so does mean a contract but you get unlimited calls/texts (& 1GB of unwanted data).

Piggybacking on O2 is/would be OK, my problem with TM is abysmal customer service. Please forgive my ignorance,  but what is the catch with Sky £1 per month...? Would I be able to renew again in 12 months?  ... Do old-school PAYG deals still exist anywhere ?

02 themselves do classic pay as you go.
3p min 2p text 1p mb.
Make a call every 6 months to keep sim alive.
No monthly top up required, just top up when credit is low.

And customer service on facebook messenger is the best,problems solved right away, even gave me a call back when they said they would.

02 do not sell this sim anymore, but plenty availible on e bay for 20p and free postage

Thanks to @alanjones and @flaneurs_lobster,  very useful info. Also found a HUKD commenter who bought the same phone model as me and a O2 321 PAYG Sim and confirmed that they work together,  so no guarantees but a positive sign. Will try this route,  with the Asda or SKY £1 Sim as Plan B.

one further question.. as my phone is dual-sim, will I be able to have my current Tesco sim in slot 1 and then use a PAC code to port the number to the new O2 in Slot 2 ??

alanjones60

Yes that will be no problem.
Even though tesco runs on 02, and half owned by 02 they ar treated as seperate companys

flaneurs_lobster

SH88SH88 said:

alanjones60 said:

SH88SH88 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

If the problem with Tesco Mobile is NOT that it runs on O2, then what about Sky Mobile @ £1/mth? It's a PAYM so does mean a contract but you get unlimited calls/texts (& 1GB of unwanted data).

Piggybacking on O2 is/would be OK, my problem with TM is abysmal customer service. Please forgive my ignorance,  but what is the catch with Sky £1 per month...? Would I be able to renew again in 12 months?  ... Do old-school PAYG deals still exist anywhere ?

02 themselves do classic pay as you go.
3p min 2p text 1p mb.
Make a call every 6 months to keep sim alive.
No monthly top up required, just top up when credit is low.

And customer service on facebook messenger is the best,problems solved right away, even gave me a call back when they said they would.

02 do not sell this sim anymore, but plenty availible on e bay for 20p and free postage

Thanks to @alanjones and @flaneurs_lobster,  very useful info. Also found a HUKD commenter who bought the same phone model as me and a O2 321 PAYG Sim and confirmed that they work together,  so no guarantees but a positive sign. Will try this route,  with the Asda or SKY £1 Sim as Plan B.

one further question.. as my phone is dual-sim, will I be able to have my current Tesco sim in slot 1 and then use a PAC code to port the number to the new O2 in Slot 2 ??

I've got a couple of O2 Classic 321 SIMs running in spare phones and I've been trying to find out if they will work with VoLTE (aka 4G calling). Sounds as if your HUKD chap has checked it out and it's OK, which is good.

robatwork

alanjones60 said:

robatwork said:

13 sets of Ts&Cs for pay monthly! Their (ID) website is a bit of a shambles to be honest, and so couched in get-outs that they can remove the unlimited for anyone who actually uses it. 

Shame there are no providers who actually do flat roaming sims, so I'll stick to buying a local PAYG sim when I travel where there are genuine unlimited options

I needed a good roaming allowance while i was in spain for a month,i tried the 100 gb 1000 mins 1000 text for 30 days.
£30 RWG
It worked perfectly.
It only worked in the eu,hence the big allowance.

That's not a terrible deal.

I get 10 days flat ie. completely unlimited for 10 euros, which is about the same price but more data. I do quite a lot of Teams/Zoom screen sharing and TV streaming and 100Gb won't be enough anyway for a month. 

MouldyOldDough

When I got my first mobile phone (1996) - it cost 12pence (+ vat) per txt sent / minute voice call

Data was hurrendous (something like £1 per Mb) - but of course I didn't use much on my Nokia 9000i.......using Vodaphone Business