Lebara top ups

d123

TMSG said:

I'd also seen that Lebara accept PP but from what @Farway wrote, I assume they collect the money by setting up recurring payments. Alas, that is precisely my problem: I do have a PP account backed by a credit card... but that card is normally frozen for online payments (I had my share of fraudulent credit card payments in the past and now only use cards I can manually freeze/unfreeze). But... as I don't know precisely at what point in time Lebara will collect the payment I can't make sure the card is unfrozen for the few seconds it takes them to get the money off it.

That's why I'd rather pay them a reasonable lump sum (eg enough £££ for say 3 or 4 months) and then be done with it for those months.

Lebara don't take the monthly bundle charge from PAYG credit held. Credit is only for extra purchases (like international calls) or if you want to use pure PAYG rates which are not cheap.

https://mobile.lebara.com/gb/en/rates

Rodders53

NB Lebara is every 30 days not calendar monthly.

Don't believe they'd use credit to fund the MSE special deals. 

You can purchase a Plan with PAYG credit with them via the App ... BUT the Plan purchases offered me when using the credit Lebara gave me are far worse value than the one I have via MSE.  I don't believe they'd be automatically renewed, either.  So it would be a monthly manual process. (that might suit, or not?)

d123

Rodders53 said:

NB Lebara is every 30 days not calendar monthly.

Don't believe they'd use credit to fund the MSE special deals. 

You can purchase a Plan with PAYG credit with them via the App ... 

ah yes, I'd forgotten about the app/short code plans. They are rather poor value compared to the monthly top up plans.

https://mobile.lebara.com/gb/en/buywithcredit

savergrant

Giffgaff

https://www.giffgaff.com/help/articles/buy-a-goodybag-with-credit

You can make a one-off purchase of a Goodybag using airtime credit or a single card transaction. You can queue a second Goodybag to start automatically when the first one ends 

So that could work for you as you could pay using a series of one-off purchases, or although they don't recommend it, topup your account and pay using your balance.

TMSG

Thanks for all the answers, great stuff. I've now ordered a SIM with Lebara, should arrive early next week. There was no Paypal option, the only payment option was with debit/credit card which was no problem as I could unfreeze. I assume that once the whole thing is up and running I could change the payment method to PP.

Speaking of which, I've read on their (PP's) site that recurring payments will always use the same payment method as used for the first payment and not any PP balance. Bummer. I will check with them whether this includes bank accts.

Or perhaps I will have to go the DD route with Lebara... I've never had any trouble with my DDs.