Pay As You Go and Vodafone unbelievable letter today

Tax_Slave

Hi,
     My wife rarely uses her mobile phone and we have it mainly for receiving text messages and calls.
She uses it to make a call probably once every 6 months and that’s a short 5 minute call.

Due to low usage we have a monthly contract with Vodafone that costs £8.05 a month including VAT and we are happy with that.
This gives her 100 minutes call time and 100 text message per month.
We took this contract out in October 2016 when we returned from living in Switzerland.
Personally I have a contract that is unlimited minutes and texts with 20GB of data and I’m a heavy user of the mobile.

Today we got an almost unbelievable letter from Vodafone informing us my wife’s monthly charge will increase 
from £6.71 + VAT
to £14.36 + VAT 
that’s more than a 100% increase !!!

So our options are to leave vodafone or consider converting to pay as you go.
Last time I used pay as you go was 20 years ago :-)

Couple of questions with regards to pay as you go.
- Can we convert same number and wife keeps same number?
- How long do credits on pay as you go last before they expire ie If we put £20 credit on on the 1st of January is it good for a year?
- Whats the minimum credit you can apply to the phone?

I tried to contact vodafone to ask this today And I got passed to 4 different people and then I lost the will to live and gave up.

We want to try converting to pay as you go if we can rather than cancel contract.
we have been with vodafone since 1992 with this number and 1999 on my number.

Alter_ego

Tesco PAYG credit does not expire. They are not keen to give you a sim but will if you persist asking for PAYG. You can port your number.

elsien

Why do you need to change to PAYG?
Just call them and ask what other contract offers they have. 

I was offered unlimited calls and texts and 1gb of data for less than your wife is paying before the  proposed increase.
It’s probably an old tariff they’re trying to get rid of but they do offer discounts - I’m on a permanent 40% off did having been with them for a while, but you di need to ask for a better deal when you call. 

zagfles

Most PAYG credit doesn't expire provided you make a call every 6 months or so. Paying even £8 a month is crazy for that level of usage, there are loads of PAYG providers where that usage would cost under £1 a year, eg Asda mobile would cost 40p a year! And you can port the number easily, and it's on the Vodafone network so coverage should be the same.

https://mobile.asda.com/pay-as-you-go

All she would need to remember is to use it for something chargeable eg a call or send a text at least once every 180 days. Which is about what she's doing now anyway. Then topping it up with a tenner would last about 20 years!

Or see https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mobiles/best-pay-as-you-go-sim-cards/ for more options.

roddydogs

Or RWG which is free for low users.

alanjones60

Yes rwg. £0 a month  50 mins or texts,and 250mb a month,renews on the 25th of the month. Just use once every 6 months to keep sim active. Had it 4 months now. No problems at all. RWG runs on EE

Neil49

If you want to stay with the Vodafone network then you could consider Lebara. 

Unlimited minutes and texts on a rolling monthly contract for under £5 per month. 

No problem to retain your number, you just get a pac from Vodafone and have 30 days to implement the switch. 

Details of this and other deals are in the mobiles section of this website. 

Brie

I go this every couple of years with EE and counter by saying I'm going to switch to <other provider> who offer better than what I'm getting for less.  This has been going on for about 10 years now and they always agree to match.

wild666

GiffGaff offer 1Gb of data and a few hundred texts for £6 per month, £60 per year, but if you want to go to a PAYG then GiffGaff has free calls between other GiffGaff users if you top up £10 every three months, just £40 per year.

zagfles

Why are people suggesting contracts when OP's wife makes a couple of 5 min calls a year? That usage should cost less than £1 a year and as above could even be totally free. Paying for any sort of contract will be far more expensive.

flashg67

zagfles said:

Why are people suggesting contracts when OP's wife makes a couple of 5 min calls a year? That usage should cost less than £1 a year and as above could even be totally free. Paying for any sort of contract will be far more expensive.

To be fair, the OP says she already has a contract, so they may prefer to stick with that method, although, as long as they can remember to make a call every so often, PAYG makes more sense at that usage level