EE - Feels like a no-brainer...

amicuspro

I'm out of contract on a SIM-only deal but with loyalty bonuses attached.  Looking at the options available the best 2yr is either £20/mth for 125Gb or £10/mth for 25Gb (both with "stay connected" data and it can be gifted across the account) or for £22/mth it's 35Gb with one "extra"... but looking at the 1mth deals I can get Unlimited, uncapped data for £19/mth including an "extra".

Currently I'm paying (from memory) just over £19 for 6Gb data and have the TNT Sports Extra (this is now £20 on its own) so it seems sensible for me to get the 1mth deal and bring our 2nd SIMS back in from another network at a cost of about £4.80 with minimal data.

What I want to know is...  Can anyone think of a reason that I shouldn't make the switch?

Cost in March '25 - both will likely go up by CPI+3.9% unless the Ofcom ruling affects current/out of contract mobiles

Could they (with notice) just increase the price by more than that as I'm out of contract?

Over to you!

n15h

Are you happy with EE? If not, there is a SIMO deal for O2 on Uswitch for 40gb for £10 or 50gb data for £12. Both have unlimited minutes + texts and 3 months free Disney+.

If you're an existing Virgin customer, you can also get their Volt benefit for O2 customers which gives you double data (on O2) and double broadband speed (on Virgin). So you could get 40gb/50gb (possible 80gb/100gb if Volt doubled) data on O2 for a much lower price than the 6gb/£19 deal from EE

They can choose to increase the price no matter whether you are in or out of contract. It's the operator's choice of how much to increase prices for all their customers e.g., this year is CPI+3.9% but next year they could say CPI+19% (extreme example). 

amicuspro

I have been happy with EE on the whole.  It's the cheapest way to get TNT Sports as well - the above options you mention have it to be added on unless you know a way to get it for half the £20/mth I have seen.  Typically since posting about this, the 1mth option has disappeared and I can't find it anywhere (the online help seemed to think it was linked to Broadband but I'm not sure it was).  I probably wasn't clear that the prices quoted above included the TNT Sports package - I wouldn't pay £20/mth just for it, but v the other deals above I'm paying about £10/mth.

Virgin, nope, got rid of them as soon as there was an alternative though may have to temporarily switch back to them to and put up with the outages if I don't get a good renewal deal with Vodafone or A.N.Other via fibre.  I'm already on a free 12mth Disney trial alongside a 5mth AppleTV one thanks to Samsung.

I should have taken the plunge on the 1mth rolling contract - I guess I was hoping for someone to point out if they thought there were any major risks to the 1mth rolling contract.  Technically, your last point references this, although it misses 2 points.  Firstly, I don't think they can change the +x% if you're in contract as that's part of the contract you have signed.  The CPI bit can change as that's still a "constant" that they don't directly control - they control which month it's linked to and what it's linked to, but not the actual %.  The +3.9% is the bit some would have less of an issue with (though I'd prefer not to have any hikes mid-contract).  The other point is the current investigation that has (I believe) led to some to start announcing "fixed" mid-contract hikes of £1.50 or some other amount.  The downside will be those who have it as larger than the % they would have gotten, but then it'll benefit those at the other end on a larger contract (if you consider a price rise as a benefit).

Ultimately, they should agree a contract that is fixed and says that as you exit the contract you go to a "variable" much the way as a mortgage does, so they may say it will go up CPI+7% or £5 at that point (or one of a range of amounts depending on the monthly rate) which would encourage people to shop around at the end of their contract to avoid the hike whilst providing knowledge of the ACTUAL cost of the contract being signed up for.  They would still keep people on (some for a month, some longer) as not everyone would change their contract each time it expired but it would be fairer on most.

Obviously it was a rolling contract, they could set it to rise at a fixed time of the year anyway so you had it as comparable to an "up to" 12mth contract.  I'm sure they could still work out ways to make plenty money.  I'll have another look at costs and try and contact the disconnections/retentions department for a best "loyalty" deal - especially if I can bring back another SIM.

d123

amicuspro said:

Cost in March '25 - both will likely go up by CPI+3.9% unless the Ofcom ruling affects current/out of contract mobiles

Could they (with notice) just increase the price by more than that as I'm out of contract?

The March 2025 increase will be £1.50 per line.

BeerSavesMoney

Do you have EE home broadband? If you do then you can get monthly rolling contracts, as an example I see the below:

I have two of the £13 deals and thought they’d go up with the yearly price rises but they remained the same this year. I guess the risk is as its monthly rolling they could change the price at any point but it also gives you the flexibility to also move to another provider with 30 days notice.