Pay as you go - mobiles

[mikewilkes]

If you are planning to change your monthly contract jobby for a pay as you go, a word of warning.
Use mine overseas for 11 months of the year but only manage to use 1 x 20 mins free time per year. Thought ok for the use it gets I'll go Pay as You Go.
Talks to Orange and they say no problem. Tell them I need to be able to use phone in far east and europe. No problems and even work out a way to top up without going back to UK.
Leave SWMBO's house just before hogmany and put on GBP40. Get to Holland and talk to the boss. Get to Kuala Lumpur - access denied. Eventually manage to get hold of SWMBO by another phone and she get's onto Orange.

Oh we dont have pay as you go facilities in Malaysia.

It seems you are ok in europe or the states( assuming you have the right kind of phone ) but not the far east. That is after telling them where I needed it to work.
Cant get the phone back on a contract now until the next time I venture onto British soil, which could be a long way off!!! /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[IanPoole2]

Thats Orange for you - I was an "early adopter" of Orange back in the dark days when they were the only ones with a digital network. I had heaps of problems when it came to upgrading.

Now I'm on Pay As You Go - Virgin - never tried it in the far east but never get much hassle with them - unlike Orange

 

[Talbot]

I have a monthly contract with Singlepoint Been very happy with it when travelling - good so fat with my Nokia 6310i in the Staes and Australia and Singapore. I have 300 free minutes/month to UK landlines and use these on internet with laptop (not GPRS) - all pictures disabled etc so the V slow service is acceptable.

Same phone and same contract now for 4 years

 

[Evadne]

I got an Orange with a "Virgin Bundle" a few years back. It is a zero-per-month contract and pay for calls via direct debit. I've no idea what the per-minute charges are, or if it's still available, but as I only use it overseas 2 or 3 times per year, and switch it off the rest of the year, it still works out cheaper than normal contract and doesn't have the hassle of topping up.

 

[BlueChip]

Why bother with PAYG. You can get a 12 month contract with free 3G phone on '3'
500 minutes a month for £25/ month discounted to £12.50 a month if you buy from a web seller

The '3' service is now quite good and quite useable. I had Orange for years but I am saving at least £25 a month now on '3'

 

[mikewilkes]

Thanks Dave, I'll have to go looking for a virgin bundle. That seems to be what I could use in my situation.

 

[bendyone]

Hi

Who do you use as your ISP - most use a 0845 number which are normally excluded for the free minutes.

 

[mikewilkes]

Martin most of my time, 92%, is spent outside the UK. I would only get to use the minutes for 1 month a year.
It is used as a sort of emergency / call the boss to tell her where I am type phone. Shortly wil be going to Myanmar and they dont have ANY phone coverage at all!!

 

[capsco]

Hi Bluechip do you have details of a webseller for the £12.50 "3phones".cheers

 

[andy_wilson]

Orange Equivalent - Virgin

Orange stopped it a couple of years ago on the basis that they never made any money from it.

There is a reason but we won't go into that now.

I have a few customers still on it, it's great for the purpose under discussion. I also have a few active SIM's. Not sure if I want to part with one yet though.

 

[mikewilkes]

Re: Orange Equivalent - Virgin

As you did not offer a glimmer of hope of anybody else doing such a thing do I take it that the whole idea of the Virgin bundle is dead.
I guess I have to go back onto a contract - but as I intend to stop gadding about the world at the end of the year it needs deep thought.

 

[Freebee]

Cant you buy a pay as you go sim card in the country you are visiting, we just did this in Turkey cost £11.90 and came with the equivalent of 60 mins of free talk time back to UK.

 

[SouthPark]

Orange still offer to match any other network's tarif - so I've got the tarif with no monthly charge that was referred to. I can't remember which network's tarif it is but if you phone Orange customer service then they'll know what you're talking about. Orange won't subsidise your handset if you're on this tarif - but you can get hold of phones very cheaply second hand. I switched to this tarif after 1 full year on a £15/month tarif - not sure if they would let you start on this tarif or switch sooner than this.

Southy

 

[BlueChip]

See http://e2save.com - there are lots of other internet phone offers. Just do a google search