Upgrade O2 SIm only via MSE Best O2 SIM

ducky2004

It is the time of the year again and O2 has just hiked the line by £2.50 (per terms).

Tried:

(1) Moneysupermarket - no upgrade option

(2) Confused.com sim only comparision states not available to current cusotmers.

So, what game would it be this year?

flaneurs_lobster

Recent thread on this subject here

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6660078/uswitch-help-please

basically there's no UPGRADE path that I've found anywhere.

It's suck up the increase or PAC out and back as new customer or find a new supplier.

Frozen_up_north

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81949860#Comment_81949860

The O2 site shows £17 for 25GB and a 24 month contract, they must be joking. GiffGaff (on O2 network), £10 for 40GB and 30 day rolling, ie no contract.

What is so special about O2?

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81950655#Comment_81950655

Via USwitch, you can get a new 12 mth O2 40GB contract for £8/mth.

Last year you could upgrade this deal for another 12 months on the same terms, no longer possible.

Why the premium for a full-fat operator (O2 and much the same for EE & Voda3)?

Top of my head…..

Daytime telephone/chat support (eg Giffgaff rely on online chat staffed by other customers other than for billing/account queries).

"Double-up/Volt" if Virgin Media customer.

Whole raft of extras/bonuses/freebies/competitions/draws via the O2 Priority app/site (I understand free Greggs sausage rolls may be involved) but there are other promotions particularly at their name-sponsored venues. Some claim to take a ~£5/week cash equivalent value from this

Other cross-supported products (eg eSIMs for smartwatches).

EU roaming free fair-usage - O2 25GB, Giffgaff 5GB.

Probably more differences, but I'm not trying to act as a cheerleader for O2. Can't upgrade my £8/mth deal so will suck up the increase - still recon that's decent value overall.

Detail_Merchant

Sometimes there are affiliate sim-only deals for O2 that can make it quite affordable.
Hopefully posting a link to a sort of competitor web-site is not a problem.
This deal disappeared within 24 hours - https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/o2-sim-12months-10gb-4848426
The version I took was offering 10GB/month for £5/month (data doubled if you had Volt)
The deal also contains a description of a method to get a new customer only deal as an upgrade, by finding the part of the deal URL after 'plan_offering_id=' and then going to an available upgrade in an existing account but replacing that part of the URL.

Unfortunately these deals only seem to last a short time, but they show the range of prices that you can get for O2. Currently the lowest price I am seeing is £7/month for 10GB/month, via various comparison site, whereas via O2 direct the cheapest plan, as mentioned above, is £17/month.

Frozen_up_north

Flaneurs_Lobster, I wasn't advocating GG particularly, but pointing out that O2 typically offer 24 month contracts which will involve annual increases - depending on when you take the contract out, and that can become poor value.

I have been with 3 and O2 in the past, then GG and now 1p Mobile. Clearly you pay a premium for being able to phone a call centre staffed by O2 people, but most folks don't need a call centre. I prefer 30 day rolling "contracts" rather than being stuck with a 2 year one.

Incidentally, 1p use the EE network and around here it is currently the only one with 5G.

I have no loyalty to any network and will change if need be.

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81950946#Comment_81950946

I've been with all of the operators you mention (and several others). As you say, most people will probably never need to contact their operator (or want free Greggs) - they just want a phone that works as cheaply as possible.

Don't think O2 particularly push their 24 month product, maybe they default to the top on general queries but 12, 18 & 24 month products are available along with rolling 1-month and PAYG (another way that the "big" operators differ from the MVNOs - range of product).

BlueonBlue

I rang o2 when this deal was posted ….they only had 24 mth contracts in that conversation /

ducky2004

Solved for me.

I called O2 on 202, ask for disconnection/retention and they offered a similar deal to my current one (a bit less data, too much anyway), but on 24 months - so I will be hit by the massive £2.50 increase next year.

However, retention - very nice Indian call centre rep [5⭐ surprisingly] offered me 20% on my additional lines for the entire 24 months - so, [total cost over 24 months] / 24 = about the same as I am now.

So, waiting to see if the "upgrade path" will reappear later. I can live with the deal for now.

If out of contract, there is another path which worked before, which is to order a new contract from the comparision sites, and then call 202 to migrate the orignal number to the new sim with a random number. The old sim/line will terminate and the new sim will have the original number.

To be sure that path still works, call O2 to confirm. You also have the right to cancel within 14 days if that path has stopped working.

Detail_Merchant

For anyone with more than one O2 sim - information about O2 multi-save - one thing to bear in mind is that to be eligible you must have connected or upgraded in the last 28 days, so worth applying (online or by text) soon after getting a new deal:

https://www.o2.co.uk/help/products-and-services/plans-and-tariffs/multisave

Basically it is 20% off all but one sim.