Dunno about them but I've been using Giffgaff for about 3 years and they seem to be unbeatable for cost and service. They are actually O2 as well. I use unlimited data, calls and text (£20/ mo) but they also do low usage plans from £5. You can change your plan each month and there's no contract.

Murray

Does anybody still do a real Pay As You Go?My PAYG EE (originally Orange) phone was very simple – buy credit, use it up (slowly in my case), top it up when it's close to running out. I've been very happy with it.

Unfortunately I lost it last week and had to buy another. It was sold to me as PAYG but it's not. It's 'Pay us some money and we'll credit you with far more minutes, texts etc. than you can use, and any you don't use in thirty days are lost. Then you have to pay us again every 30 days for another lot, or the phone becomes a doorstop'.

This seems at best a rip-off, and at worst fraudulent. So I repeat, does anybody do a real PAYG?

George

I'm with O2 (Contract) and have no problems … my wife is on PAYG with O2 (Classic PAYG Tariff) which is a standard real PAYG

Dave

does anybody do a real PAYG?

Tesco do them, the free credit lasts 30 days but the top up lasts at least a year (maybe more)

I quit O2 because their PAYG was a bit of a rape job for me, in 3 years of use I think I got a 1 pound "bonus"

Edited By Ady1 on 01/05/2018 00:49:43

I think the answer is yes – if you still have your old PAYG phone / sim card.

The latest is you pay monthly use it or not.

If you do not use the phone much then there are cheap deals of £5 to £8 /pm giving enough data, texts and calls to keep a low user satisfied.

J

GiffGaff says their airtime credit never expires but you must use the phone at least once every six months to keep the number active. If you let the number go inactive then you loose all credit. Requirement for at least one call / text in a given period seems to have always been normal for PAYG. My first one was once every 6 weeks, some were once a month ion those days.

Like Murray and John I find that GiffGaff works fine for me. Got a new Apple iPhone SE off them for a very attractive price a month or so back when I was forced to admit that my faithful iPhone 4 on iOS 7 was obsolete. ApplePay and the Waitrose self scan app are nice!

Slightly off topic but if you have a BT phone line the Smart-Talk app lets you use your mobile at home on you standard calling plan just like a normal phone. Cheaper. Something I do fairly often as a mobile is better at the call record keeping business than an ordinary DECT wander phone or handset. Now if only they'd figure out how to make mobile pick up a DECT signal directly.

Clive.

Edited By Clive Foster on 01/05/2018 10:01:35

I am on PAYG with O2 and have my own SIM-free Android phone but because I use data I buy a £10 bundle every month.

I live in Cumbria and the only good way IMHO to choose an operator is to find one that provides the best coverage for the services you want in the areas you live and work in.

There are only 4 real operators in the UK – EE, 3, Vodafone and O2. Every other seller piggy-backs on one of these. See **LINK**

HTH

Jon

Point of detail, recent change: EE are now BT. I doubt it will make much difference at least in the short term.

Tesco do a useful feature that many others don't – a spending cap. So if you are on a monthly contract you can set say a £5 extra charges limit, and it won't let you go over that (you can disable it of course if e.g. in an emergency abroad). Good for peace of mind that you won't be hit by a huge unintended bill.

I recently changed over from Tesco PAYG to 1P Mobile. With Tesco I was paying 10p a text with 1P well 1p. It is 1p a minute for calls, 1p a text and 1p a megabyte for data. The minimum charge is £10 for 120 days, but any of that not used gets carried over.

I put the phone on a pay-as-you-go tariff with Three. A bit pissed off because I had to buy a second £10 worth after only ten months. I guess I had used the mapping facility on the phone a couple of times when I got lost and needed to turn on mobile data for those occasions…