Orange PAYG & Orange Wednesdays - First time fail

[stoofa]

OK, won't beat around the bush.
9 months ago I left Orange after being with them for about 12 years due to not getting the greatest deal on upgrades and moved to O2.
I've been happy enough with that move etc.
One thing I missed was Orange Wednesdays - we go to the cinema quite a lot so saving nearly £6.50 each Wednesday was excellent.
So...

After I left Orange I got an Orange PAYG SIM - it cost me £1 and that £1 was then placed as credit back on to my account.
For the past nine months I've sent the "Film" text to 241 on a Wednesday and I've always had an Orange Wednesdays text back with my text ticket.
I kept on checking my account and I was told that my credit was £1 - so I wasn't getting charged to text "Film" to 241 and I wasn't getting charged for the text back.
I felt this couldn't be right, however who was I to complain, so I carried on happily until tonight.

Got in from work, fiancee decided she did want to go to the cinema tonight.
Sent "Film" to 241 as usual and instead of getting the usual text ticket within a minute or two I got a message saying:
"Please reply "Yes" to this message to get a 2-for-1 text ticket. Please check terms and conditions at www.orange.co.uk/film. Your text charge is 35p"
I sent back a "Yes" text and that is the last action we did this evening, never got another text back and haven't received the text ticket.

Before I maybe give Orange CS a call tomorrow to find out what may have gone wrong, can anyone confirm a couple of things?

1. I've subsequently checked the credit on my phone and I've got 11p (LOL).
As I said above I've been using £1 of credit to in effect get free Orange Wednesdays for the past 9 months. Is it possible Orange have spotted this flaw and it does now indeed cost me 35p to receive the text ticket, hence why I didn't get one tonight?

2. Are Orange now actively enforcing Term 22:
Text tickets are subject to availability. Text tickets are issued on a priority basis to active customers who spend over £5 per month with Orange. Orange may revise the terms of this promotion from time to time
Specifically the part about spending £5 per month - as obviously I don't?

35p is still cheaper than me paying 2x £6.50 to go to the cinema on a Wednesday.
Before I put £5 credit on the phone I just want to check that will allow me to do 14x Orange Wednesdays before requiring me to put more credit on (which I'm more than happy to do).
Or will I fall foul of Term 22 next month when I didn't put another £5 worth of credit on?

Thanks.

 

[stoofa]

No, there is no confusion
That term & condition has been in place for ages - ever since I was with Orange on Pay Monthly.
However, for the past 9 months I've been using an Orange PAYG SIM with £1 worth of credit on.
I have never, ever topped it up in all that time.
However for the past nine months, without fail I've been able to get my 2-4-1 ticket every week.

I know the T&C is there - however Orange haven't been enforcing it or else I would have never received a ticket since I bought the PAYG SIM for £1.
So my second question was if anybody knew if Orange were now enforcing it.
If so then I know I need to keep on adding £5 per month to qualify which I probably won't bother doing.
If they aren't enforcing it but are now charging me 35p per 2-4-1 text ticket then that would explain why I didn't get one last night and by adding £5 on I'll be able to use it for another 3 months (£5 = 14 2-4-1 tickets at 35p each).

 

[stoofa]

Nope - but I was hoping one of the two Orange employee's (that I know of who frequent this forum) might now the answer.
Before adding £5 I just wanted to make sure that was the most likely reason for the failed text ticket last night and that they haven't started enforcing the £5 per month spend to qualify.

Sorry if me posting a question here was a problem - looks like we could probably clear the whole of this forum out because everyone might just as well call the telco....

 

[stoofa]

The Orange wednesday charging has been broken for a while, in that it wasn't charging people the 10p it should have done for text tickets, that has now been rectified.

As for the second point, I really don't know whether they have started enforcing it or not, so I can't help you on that one.

Thanks Dolph,

I just put £5 credit on (my first top up in 9 months (well it had to happen sooner or later)) and sent for my text ticket and I've got one for next Wednesday so that was obviously the reason I didn't get one this week.

I guess I'll find out in a month's time if the term & condition is being enforced or not as this £5 credit in theory should last me over 3 months.

 

[stoofa]

Just be glad that up until this date youve got away without having to abide by the T&Cs - I doubt they are enforcing it and its probably just unlucky that this time it didnt go through - no harm in putting £5 a month considering youre are saving £26 a month anyway - still up by a score even if you dont even use the phone credit

ps3ud0

Fully agree with you.
As it turns out I put £5 on, sent another text to 241 at the end of last week and I've now got my ticket for this Wednesday (19th).
As you said, even if I end up having to put £5 a month on - if we go to the cinema 4 times in that month we'll still save money, just not quite as much as I'm used to.

The thing is, when I was in effect getting the totally free ticket every week I was honestly feeling guilty.
I coulkdn't understand why I should be entitled to this free promotion for Orange customers when I was an O2 customer and simply had a £1 Orange SIM with £1 of credit on it.
I feel slightly less guilty having to pay 35p each week

 

[stoofa]

I have an Orange phone on Contract and I've just requested an OW ticket and got a text back asking me to reply "Yes" to the message at a cost of 35p for the OW ticket.

So, are they charging 10p or 35p for the OW tickets?

According to the OW Terms & Conditions (Number 23):

To call or text 241 is free. To receive a text ticket you'll be charged a rate of 35p per text.

If I remember correctly, when OW was first introduced and I was with orange on contract I was told a text from 241 cost me a normal text message charge - so that would have been 10p.
Looks like now they have fixed things everyone gets charged 35p.
I'm still not going to compain as at £6.20 per ticket I'm still £5.85 better off.
So long as they don't force me to put £5 on the phone each month - it soon adds up.

 

[stoofa]

out of intrest - have you tried registering that orange sim online? - i have one too, but when i want to register it online (ie to the service that allows me to assign top up cards and get credit by debit card) apparently im not an orange customer?


sorry for the ot

When I first got the SIM I registered it over the phone.
They took my Debit Card details and when I want to top-up I log into my account, enter the last 4 digits of the debit card and the amount and job done.
Unfortunately my Debit Card had expired before I came to top-up and they don't let you change your Debit Card details online for some reason.
However a quick 10 minute call to Orange CS solved that one - she removed my old card, added my new one and topped me up by £5 all in one go.

She also offered me some free picture messages which I declined as I purely use the Orange SIM for OW.

 

[stoofa]

hmmm, not so sure about that.
Clause 22 :"Text tickets are subject to availability. Text tickets are issued on a priority basis to active customers who spend over £5 per month with Orange. Orange may revise the terms of this promotion from time to time."

Yer I know.
If you read from the beginning of the thread you'll see I've mentioned this before.
Basically my situation:

For past 9 months I've had an Orange PAYG SIM with £1 of credit on it.
It's never ever been topped up (until last Friday).
Over those nine months I've received an OW ticket nearly every single week as I always text for one even if we didn't end up going out.
So for 9 months I wasn't being charged anything for any text I sent, anything for any text I received and wasn't forced to add £5 per month.

As per my original post it all stopped working last Wednesday.
Dolph confirmed above that Orange have now fixed the billing issue - this is almost certainly why I didn't get a ticket last week as I only had 11p left on my SIM.
I'm just now hoping they don't enforce clause 22 - a £5 top-up is enough for 14x OW (at 35p each now they have fixed the billing issue).
If they enforce it a £5 top-up will only get me 4x OW (or as many Wednesdays as there are in any given month).