contract tends to be a bad deal for me, should I avoid it always?

sheffieldeagle

darto150 said:

I got a contract a while ago I think it's maybe 5GB 3 years  £10 a month.. But then my experience has been that after 2 years or so, you can get 10GB £10 a month, PAYG.
No new phone with it 'cos I don't want to pay over £10 a month.
So is contract always a bad deal eg if not getting a new phone with it as is the case with me?

Getting back to the OP's original post I only go with a contract when the cashback sites make it worthwhile. 

Cheers 

darto150

oldernonethewiser said:

It depends.

Some of the rolling 30 day deals offer good value.

I try never to have any contract over 12 months.

Current is £8 per month for 40GB (12 month contract)

Thanks that is excellent advice .. I shouldn't have gotten a contract for more than 12 months..  I think some people do if they want a new phone with it, so maybe it's worth it for them?

And i've just realised.. there must be three types.  Rolling,  Contract, and PAYG.   I'm not sure if my tesco one is PAYG or rolling. I don't recall signing anything though maybe I signed one thing. It was easy.   I remember my three contract was a whole load of paperwork to go through.  

Currently i'm on a contract with Three. And since Three wasn't operating properly for days, causing me a lot of inconvenience,  i'm  with Tesco.     I've put my Three  SIM card back in though 'cos they have my normal mobile number.  So I guess i'll cancel the rolling with Tesco.

Where can I get a 12 month contract similar to yours?  I don't mind if it's a bit less than 40GB but I dodn't want to pay more than £10 a month So if it was was £8  40GB or anything like that then that'd be great.

Thanks

savergrant

The major difference is how you are charged for out of allowance usage (such as doing constituency work while in spain). If you have a contract you are billed afterwards, if you are on payg it will eat up your credit balance (and then may auto topup). Often if you purchase a 30 day bundle you find you are giving them an instruction to buy further bundles once it expires (auto renew). It is pretty much the same with car insurance.

zagfles

savergrant said:

The major difference is how you are charged for out of allowance usage (such as doing constituency work while in spain). If you have a contract you are billed afterwards, if you are on payg it will eat up your credit balance (and then may auto topup). Often if you purchase a 30 day bundle you find you are giving them an instruction to buy further bundles once it expires (auto renew). It is pretty much the same with car insurance.

With 1pmobile it's very clear that auto topups and bundle auto renewals are optional, I've just purchased a bundle, there's an auto renewal option which you can tick but by default it's unticked.

The using of credit balance rather than being billed afterwards is a good safety net, just read all the stories of people being billed thousands eg because they unknowingly roamed onto a Turkish network in Greece or thought they were on wifi when they were on mobile data.

flaneurs_lobster

zagfles said:

The using of credit balance rather than being billed afterwards is a good safety net, just read all the stories of people being billed thousands eg because they unknowingly roamed onto a Turkish network in Greece or thought they were on wifi when they were on mobile data.

Good advice. If you are on a pre-pay contract there is often an option to set an upper limit on out-of-package spend which can be another guard against unwanted cost.

zagfles

flaneurs_lobster said:

zagfles said:

The using of credit balance rather than being billed afterwards is a good safety net, just read all the stories of people being billed thousands eg because they unknowingly roamed onto a Turkish network in Greece or thought they were on wifi when they were on mobile data.

Good advice. If you are on a pre-pay contract there is often an option to set an upper limit on out-of-package spend which can be another guard against unwanted cost.

I presume you meant post-pay, but watch out for exclusions on any cap.

flaneurs_lobster

zagfles said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

zagfles said:

The using of credit balance rather than being billed afterwards is a good safety net, just read all the stories of people being billed thousands eg because they unknowingly roamed onto a Turkish network in Greece or thought they were on wifi when they were on mobile data.

Good advice. If you are on a pre-pay contract there is often an option to set an upper limit on out-of-package spend which can be another guard against unwanted cost.

I presume you meant post-pay, but watch out for exclusions on any cap.

Sorry, yes, a PAYM contract where you pre-pay for your call/text/data package and post-pay for any out of package usage.