02 Contract up for renewal - they still cutting deals?

scaramanga182 · 20 Nov 2006 at 10:34

I've been on the o2 online 200 for the last 3 years and for the last year they reduced it from £29.99 a month to £19.99 a month as I wanted a free upgrade and they wouldn't give me one so I kicked off and they reduced my bill for a year. This reduced rate has now run out and I want to upgrade from a w800i to a k800i and I'm pretty certain they say it'll cost me yet new custmers get it free. Can I pull the same stunt I did last year by threatening to leave with my pak code then phoning them back in a couple of days for my new free phone? - I know last year o2 had some takeover thing on so they were desperate to get customers.

The Running Man · 20 Nov 2006 at 12:01

not that good a deal, but i think it depends on your spend, the best they could do for me is knock a tenner off my line rental and give me more minutes, but still wanted £80 for a k800 i on top of that to upgrade...

stoofa · 20 Nov 2006 at 12:57

I'm on the old (now non-existant?) £20 per month tarrif and that ran out a couple of months ago.
I'm going to be trying for a free upgrade to the K800i in Silver this afternoon.
However I'm not interested in attempting to get any more free minutes or texts or money off.
So I shall try for a free upgrade to the K800i Silver and if they won't play ball I'll have to look at my options.

The Running Man · 20 Nov 2006 at 13:03

get looking before you call them imo. they just wouldnt give me the phone for free, but that was a month or two back..

scaramanga182 · 20 Nov 2006 at 13:58

stoofa said:
I'm on the old (now non-existant?) £20 per month tarrif and that ran out a couple of months ago.
I'm going to be trying for a free upgrade to the K800i in Silver this afternoon.
However I'm not interested in attempting to get any more free minutes or texts or money off.
So I shall try for a free upgrade to the K800i Silver and if they won't play ball I'll have to look at my options.

Same here I don't even use them all now. Let us know how you get on.

stoofa · 20 Nov 2006 at 14:40

Will report back shortly..am just about to call them.
I can get the K800i in black for free on Orange Dolphin 19 which is as the name sounds £19 per month.
So now I know I can get something similar to what I want at another telco (if the need arises) I'm not scared about asking for my PAC

charltonfan1 · 20 Nov 2006 at 15:03

unless you are a high spend customer i.e. averaging over £80/month they almost certainly won't give you the K800i for free. If they say it'l cost you £80 then barter down your line rental by saying you want to leave etc etc

stoofa · 20 Nov 2006 at 16:00

As expected there is no move on the K800i in silver - nice though the phone is I'm afraid in my eyes it is not worth £199.99
As expected they were willing to play around with the tarrif slightly - keeping me on the £20 per month tarrif but knocking off a 20% loyalty bonus, which would take it down to £16.30 per month and adding 400 text messages a month.
Handset prices not great - K610i pushed at £89.99 although was given the impression there was some potential movement there.

To be honest, I can take a PAC code to Orange (Dolphin 19) or Vodafone (Anytime 75) and get the K800i in black for free (and still have approx. same number of minutes/text I'm using now) so that is looking most likely for me at this very moment.

scaramanga182 · 20 Nov 2006 at 16:24

stoofa said:
As expected there is no move on the K800i in silver - nice though the phone is I'm afraid in my eyes it is not worth £199.99
As expected they were willing to play around with the tarrif slightly - keeping me on the £20 per month tarrif but knocking off a 20% loyalty bonus, which would take it down to £16.30 per month and adding 400 text messages a month.
Handset prices not great - K610i pushed at £89.99 although was given the impression there was some potential movement there.

To be honest, I can take a PAC code to Orange (Dolphin 19) or Vodafone (Anytime 75) and get the K800i in black for free (and still have approx. same number of minutes/text I'm using now) so that is looking most likely for me at this very moment.

Cool. Thanks for the heads up. I just want a new phone with roughly the same contract so I think I'll just take my PAC and find another dealer then. It just makes me laugh how spot on the Nat West (i think) 'Brand New Customers Only' advert is!

scratch · 20 Nov 2006 at 18:23

I'm on Online 100 (£25pm) and phoned this afternoon to try and upgrade to a Z610i. They absolutely refused to budge on the handset price..£89.99. They offered me a Z710i at £20 and wouldn't even give me that for free!

They did offer £10/month off my line rental, but to be honest I'd prefer to have a free phone so am going to phone back tomorrow to request my PAC code and move to Orange or T-Mobile.

Strange that they'd rather knock £120 off my line rental than £20 off a phone!!

Andy

AtreuS · 20 Nov 2006 at 19:36

scratch said:
I'm on Online 100 (£25pm) and phoned this afternoon to try and upgrade to a Z610i. They absolutely refused to budge on the handset price..£89.99. They offered me a Z710i at £20 and wouldn't even give me that for free!

They did offer £10/month off my line rental, but to be honest I'd prefer to have a free phone so am going to phone back tomorrow to request my PAC code and move to Orange or T-Mobile.

Strange that they'd rather knock £120 off my line rental than £20 off a phone!!

Andy

I took the 20quid Z710i myself... my credit score is now pants so i cant goto another operator so its suited me fine. They even threw in an extra 100 texts a month for life if i took it there and then. Id only phoned up to check that the dodgy upgrade some scam company had done was cancelled. ( see http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17650128 )

Matrix · 20 Nov 2006 at 20:05

I'm in the same boat myself with o2 I'm going to move to T mobile now as they have a lot better offers on there Flex packages.

stoofa · 21 Nov 2006 at 02:17

After looking around it looks like it's back to Orange for me.
Initially it looked like I could get the K800i on any network for free as a new customer.
However it would appear that most of those are on 18 month deals.
I've got no real objection to an 18 month deal, but I do rather like handset changes every 12 months.
Orange Dolphin 19 on a 12 month contract gets me more or less the same unmodified minutes/texts as the O2 contract gave (before I called today and they offered a massive text bundle and 20% line rate reduction) and gets me the K800i for free.
Plus it's nice and easy to keep my number.

So I shall phone O2 back tomorrow and request my PAC - that'll give them one final opportunity to try and keep me and then I'm off.
It's funny, this time last year I was actually preparing to leave Orange after 12 years because they wouldn't budge on the W800i pricing - again I just wouldn't pay £110 for a handset as a "loyal" customer that a new customer could get for £20 and in the end went to O2 and got the handset for £5.

scaramanga182 · 21 Nov 2006 at 14:48

Just phoned o2 after spending the morning in town and found a couple of good flex deals. Asked for me PAC and they've now given me 500 Xnetwork +500Txt for £20/month plus a free K610i. Not the phone I was orginally after but over double minutes and new shiney for free will do.

Matrix · 21 Nov 2006 at 15:23

scaramanga182 said:
Just phoned o2 after spending the morning in town and found a couple of good flex deals. Asked for me PAC and they've now given me 500 Xnetwork +500Txt for £20/month plus a free K610i. Not the phone I was orginally after but over double minutes and new shiney for free will do.

May try that myself then and see what happens

You with o2 online or just o2?

Thanks

scaramanga182 · 21 Nov 2006 at 20:45

Matrix said:
May try that myself then and see what happens
You with o2 online or just o2?

Thanks

o2 online. I phoned customers services to start with and they didn't seem bothered that I wanted to leave, then once I was through to the cancellation department, the bartering began! Can sell me w800i when new phone arrives, should pay for either a DS lite or a couple of good nights out!

stoofa · 21 Nov 2006 at 22:32

scaramanga182 said:
Just phoned o2 after spending the morning in town and found a couple of good flex deals. Asked for me PAC and they've now given me 500 Xnetwork +500Txt for £20/month plus a free K610i. Not the phone I was orginally after but over double minutes and new shiney for free will do.

I'm phoning through for my PAC tomorrow (didn't have time today) and I fully expect I'll get the same treatment once I'm actually asking to leave ratehr than just threatening.
You've got a good deal there - can't complain.
To me they could throw 1000 minutes and 1000 texts a day and I'd still ask for the PAC as it isn't those that are the problem - it's the handset I'm after.

stoofa · 22 Nov 2006 at 14:42

OK - just about to phone for my PAC code now.
Anything could happen but I'm pretty sure I'll be coming off the phone with the code rather than the K800i.

First time I've actually had to deal with PAC codes to be honest.
Will they be able to give me the code there and then on the phone or is it something they need to send?
Me requesting the PAC code - I'm assuming that is also the same as giving them the required notice to disconnect?
At what stage do I use the PAC code to transfer the number over to another network? Do I get my new phone ordered and then once it arrives give them the code or do I need to give them the code when I actually order my new phone/contract?

Ta

Matrix · 22 Nov 2006 at 20:18

scaramanga182 said:
Just phoned o2 after spending the morning in town and found a couple of good flex deals. Asked for me PAC and they've now given me 500 Xnetwork +500Txt for £20/month plus a free K610i. Not the phone I was orginally after but over double minutes and new shiney for free will do.

I've just done the same and been offered the same deal myself which i took.
500mins any network an 500txts will do me just grand!

Very pleased with the deal and i really can't see me eating up all those mins a month!

Thanks for the advice on here.

Bigpops · 22 Nov 2006 at 22:39

stoofa said:
Me requesting the PAC code - I'm assuming that is also the same as giving them the required notice to disconnect?

Yes. Whatever you do, don't ask for a disconnection. As soon as your phone is disconnected, your phone number goes bye bye.

stoofa said:
At what stage do I use the PAC code to transfer the number over to another network? Do I get my new phone ordered and then once it arrives give them the code or do I need to give them the code when I actually order my new phone/contract?

You give the pac code when you order your new phone/contract.