negotiating a new phone contract

marktruman · 1 Jun 2016 at 21:54

I'm coming to end of 24 month contract with O2 ( carphone warehouse ) at £28 a month

I get unlimited texts/minutes and 4gb of data, pretty good

My contract expires in a week and carephone warehouse rang me before, and offered me a FREE s7 with 3gb of data for £38.. not bad, but I think I can do better

does anyone have any tips? Of course I have history with O2/CW so will get a better deal with them, rather than going to someone like EE ( has more data ) or three ( has unlimited handset )

Captain · 1 Jun 2016 at 21:57

Buy the phone outright and get yourself a sim only deal, unlimited data and texts, 200 minutes and 12GB tethering for £20, may not be an option but I'll never get tied down to a phone contract again.

Eurofighter · 1 Jun 2016 at 21:59

Above is the cheapest way

marktruman · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:00

Clov!s said:
Buy the phone outright and get yourself a sim only deal, unlimited data and texts, 200 minutes and 12GB tethering for £20, may not be an option but I'll never get tied down to a phone contract again.

Is this with Three? How do they calculate the tethering usage? thats actually pretty good

R.C.Anderson · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:01

In general, you'll get a better deal once you've told them you want to leave & they transfer you to the leaving/retentions department.

As an example, I was going to leave Vodafone as the best the normal people would offer was (sim only) 2GB data, ult'd texts & mins for ~£18/month, but told them I wasn't interested, so they transferred me to the retentions department, and I ended up getting 4GB data, ult'd texts & calls for ~£10!

Captain · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:02

That is with three yeah.

marktruman · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:13

Clov!s said:
That is with three yeah.

all you can eat, so on my handset I could get a torrent program and go to town? or is it throttled?

Captain · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:18

marktruman said:
all you can eat, so on my handset I could get a torrent program and go to town? or is it throttled?

You could but it would take you ages

smr · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:20

Clov!s said:
Buy the phone outright and get yourself a sim only deal, unlimited data and texts, 200 minutes and 12GB tethering for £20, may not be an option but I'll never get tied down to a phone contract again.

Sorry to be so ignorant but could you please explain how much this all costs/what it involves etc.?

paradigm · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:21

Clov!s said:
You could but it would take you ages

Why would it? I get 33Mbps here on three.

It's certainly not an elegant way to download stuff, and you'd then have to transfer it to your PC/Laptop/Tablet/Whatever, but it won't be much slower than (or in a lot of cases quicker than) your fixed internet connection.

Oh, and I've never been throttled either.

Richy888 · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:41

R.C.Anderson said:
In general, you'll get a better deal once you've told them you want to leave & they transfer you to the leaving/retentions department.

As an example, I was going to leave Vodafone as the best the normal people would offer was (sim only) 2GB data, ult'd texts & mins for ~£18/month, but told them I wasn't interested, so they transferred me to the retentions department, and I ended up getting 4GB data, ult'd texts & calls for ~£10!

Which would be easier than actually leaving Vodafone :eek:

marktruman · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:45

paradigm said:
Why would it? I get 33Mbps here on three.

It's certainly not an elegant way to download stuff, and you'd then have to transfer it to your PC/Laptop/Tablet/Whatever, but it won't be much slower than (or in a lot of cases quicker than) your fixed internet connection.

Oh, and I've never been throttled either.

yeah its looking tempting as fibre not in my area, no virgin and my internet is around 512k, so about 300kb/s download!

Spacedeck · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:51

Clov!s said:
That is with three yeah.

Will this require a new sim card? I currently have a contract out with Three for my Note 4. It's due to end in a few months and due to circumstances, I'm going to go to PAYG. Staying with Three as I quite like them.

Where does one obtain such deals?

marktruman · 1 Jun 2016 at 22:59

Spacedeck said:
Will this require a new sim card? I currently have a contract out with Three for my Note 4. It's due to end in a few months and due to circumstances, I'm going to go to PAYG. Staying with Three as I quite like them.

Where does one obtain such deals?

http://www.three.co.uk/_standalone/PricePlan_Details?content_aid=1400624190965

On our All-you-can-eat data plans, you can use up to 30GB of your data each month to create a Personal Hotspot within the UK

30gb of tethering!

Captain · 1 Jun 2016 at 23:35

Spacedeck said:
Will this require a new sim card? I currently have a contract out with Three for my Note 4. It's due to end in a few months and due to circumstances, I'm going to go to PAYG. Staying with Three as I quite like them.

Where does one obtain such deals?

It shouldn't do, when your contract finishes, it will roll into a 30 day rolling contract if you choose to keep the sim active, this can then be setup three's end which will turn your contract sim into a payg sim.

Captain · 1 Jun 2016 at 23:46

smr said:
Sorry to be so ignorant but could you please explain how much this all costs/what it involves etc.?

Of course.

Depending on who you choose to be your network provider, if it were three for eg then you would pay:

£29 for the phone and in order to get unlimited data you need to choose the £53 a month package, this means after 2 years you'll pay £1301.

If you buy the phone outright from Samsung, you'll pay £569 for the phone but it can be had for cheaper and the same deal i'm on for £20 a month means you'll pay roughly £1000 over 2 years.

The added bonus being you aren't tied down for 2 years, you can choose to setup your sim only plan on a monthly rolling plan, 12 months or 24 months, you also get an unlocked handset, the freedom to change network providers whenever you choose and if a new phone pops that you like, keep the sim only plan and sell the phone, then you can use your sim as long as you like.

I have had my 3 sim for a few years now as it can't be beat on price.

marktruman · 1 Jun 2016 at 23:47

Clov!s said:
Of course.

Depending on who you choose to be your network provider, if it were three for eg then you would pay:

£29 for the phone and in order to get unlimited data you need to choose the £53 a month package, this means after 2 years you'll pay £1301.

If you buy the phone outright from Samsung, you'll pay £569 for the phone but it can be had for cheaper and the same deal i'm on for £20 a month means you'll pay roughly £1000 over 2 years.

The added bonus being you aren't tied down for 2 years, you can choose to setup your sim only plan on a monthly rolling plan, 12 months or 24 months, you also get an unlocked handset, the freedom to change network providers whenever you choose and if a new phone pops that you like, keep the sim only plan and sell the phone, then you can use your sim as long as you like.

I have had my 3 sim for a few years now as it can't be beat on price.

sounds like a plan, not to mention offsetting cost of new phone (s7) with the sale of current phone ( s6 )

wesimmo · 2 Jun 2016 at 00:44

I'm a very light user of calls and texts and, increasingly as WiFi becomes more freely available, data.

It ended up being much cheaper for me to buy my 6P outright and change to GiffGaff SIM only for the reasons stated above.

Obviously you have to have sufficient cash to buy outright and not borrow money off Wonga to fund buying your phone for this to pay off.

I get a text at each top up date encouraging me to downgrade my package if I get nowhere near my limits. I'm currently on £7.50 a month, but may pay more in months I travel more and don't frequent places I've already got WiFi access details saved in my phone.

marktruman · 2 Jun 2016 at 00:45

so guys I think I made a choice, I'm going to give the finger to O2/carphone warehouse when they ask me to renew, and get a sim only plan with unlimited data!

rage against the machine!

413x · 2 Jun 2016 at 07:57

Clov!s said:
Of course.

Depending on who you choose to be your network provider, if it were three for eg then you would pay:

£29 for the phone and in order to get unlimited data you need to choose the £53 a month package, this means after 2 years you'll pay £1301.

If you buy the phone outright from Samsung, you'll pay £569 for the phone but it can be had for cheaper and the same deal i'm on for £20 a month means you'll pay roughly £1000 over 2 years.

The added bonus being you aren't tied down for 2 years, you can choose to setup your sim only plan on a monthly rolling plan, 12 months or 24 months, you also get an unlocked handset, the freedom to change network providers whenever you choose and if a new phone pops that you like, keep the sim only plan and sell the phone, then you can use your sim as long as you like.

I have had my 3 sim for a few years now as it can't be beat on price.

It's not always the case tho.
You can get deals that work out better with contract
And you can still sell your phone and change that mid contract

I'm probably going to go into contract after being on Sim only for years

The ability to change network quickly is nice though