Spending €20 a week on credit...

Funkstard

I'm with Vodafone RTG at the moment, and down in college spending €20 (the odd time €30) on credit a week, 95% of the contact is to my girlfriend.

Should I look into buying billphone? I was looking at Meteor's Talk 300 plan - €50 a month, 300 free minutes and the reason for me getting it; free meteor to meteor calls and texts. My girlfriend is on Vodafone but she is willing to change to Meteor or whatever. The only catch is that there are no texts included in the plan - it'll be an extra 9c a text, and I can sometimes do a bit of texting to my friends, not many or none of which are on Meteor.

I'm going to Canada for 8 weeks during the summer which would be a reason for me to hold off committing to a contract now, I wouldn't like the idea of having to cough up €100 while im over there on top of barely having enough income to live.

What do you think? I can't really find anything comparable on O2 or Vodafone.

GUIGuy

Most of the Voda bill pay tariffs have a "call a friend for free" option... but its up to you to read up and make the decision!

destraynor

callcosts.ie will help suss this out for you

They have a calculator
http://callcosts.ie/mobile_phones/Mobile_Calculator.123.LE.asp

whisht

Is it mainly texts or calls at the moment?
Maybe stay on RTG for now if going away for 2 months, but make sure you are getting the best value from your package, such as the above mentioned call for free and also buy texts in bundles as its cheaper

http://vodafone.ie/priceplans/moreabout/6c_txt.jsp?site=personal

Also check out the free texts or free calls for weekends for life

http://vodafone.ie/readytogo/tariffs/freetxtwknd/index.jsp

Jeez, you'd think I was a Vodafone fan!!!! (which I'm not!)

Sam Vimes

destraynor wrote:

callcosts.ie will help suss this out for you

They have a calculator
http://callcosts.ie/mobile_phones/Mobile_Calculator.123.LE.asp

no it won't. it doesn't take account of stuff like meteor's free calls. its all but useless tbh. for example, 9,999 minutes to meteor numbers on talk 300 costs €50. callcosts.ie says it'll cost somewhere over 2 grand

i find the cheapest is meteor pre pay + 5c met-met calls+AFT (see my sig). if you make loads and loads of calls to your gf, meteor talk 300 would be a good deal for yourself.

or maybe 3's deal for 19 per month + 3.99 for unlimited 3-3 calls and her to switch to 3pay or 3 bill. having said that, 3's customer care is woeful and you can't use AFT on 3.

vodafone bill pay has pretty much nothing to recommend it and o2 is somewhere in the middle

Oracle

I think it's hard to beat Meteor most of the time. I'd stay clear of contracts with any provider, works out too expensive. Meteor have the often overlooked text bundle; 150 texts for €7.50, available on prepay. Works out at almost half price, 5c per text. Just one catch; they expire 30 days after you buy them and the free text offer doesn't apply until you've used them. But you can send them to any network, and you can buy them when you want (no subscription just buy online, or by phone) For a bundle €7.50 is reasonable it's a moderate amount to pay in advance.

What about a combination of this prepay bundle and the Meteor 5c talk offer to call your girlfriend, if she also switches to Meteor? Also there's a few little tricks with these offers; one of you could avail of the free text offer and buy no extra bundle, while the other could get the 5c calls offer and buy the bundle, depending on who talks/texts the most and to whom. Of course you could both get the 5c calls and call each other at this low rate, a great money saver.

Another tip is to watch for the supermarkets giving extra free credit or discounts on topups. These can be bought in advance and added months later, saving you 10% or more.

Sam Vimes

Oracle wrote:

I think it's hard to beat Meteor most of the time. I'd stay clear of contracts with any provider, works out too expensive.

that depends entirely on usage. if you're spending 50pm or more, a contract would probably be cheaper.

Oracle wrote:

Meteor have the often overlooked text bundle; 150 texts for €7.50, available on prepay. Works out at almost half price, 5c per text. Just one catch; they expire 30 days after you buy them and the free text offer doesn't apply until you've used them. But you can send them to any network, and you can buy them when you want (no subscription just buy online, or by phone) For a bundle €7.50 is reasonable it's a moderate amount to pay in advance.

the reason its overlooked is its not nearly as good as the free text offer. and don't overlook AFT. free texts to meteor numbers and 1c to other networks
or 5c calls to met numbers and 1c texts to all networks as i have

BostonB

I find moving to contract means you use the phone more and any savings are negated. With prepay your discipline is much better leading to spending less.

jesus_thats_gre

BostonB wrote:

I find moving to contract means you use the phone more and any savings are negated. With prepay your discipline is much better leading to spending less.

I can see where you are coming from but...

jesus_thats_gre

BostonB wrote:

I find moving to contract means you use the phone more and any savings are negated. With prepay your discipline is much better leading to spending less.

I can see where you are coming from but...



To the OP, Vodafone have a tariff that offers unlimited calls to Vodafone numbers. Think it is €69 a month.

Oracle

Contract is never cheaper because you're paying in advance to something you may or may not use. The only perk is they give you a free/reduced price "fancy" phone, but you pay through the nose for that in the extra costs.

My total mobile phone costs will be €79 , not for the month but for the entire year. But for that I'll be getting €140 in call credit spread across the next 9 months. It's 700 mins in total, or about an hour a month, that suits me as I don't use my mobile a lot. The point is it just costs me €1.52 a week, great value, and that includes a new Nokia phone with headset.

BostonB

Oracle wrote:

Contract is never cheaper because you're paying in advance to something you may or may not use. The only perk is they give you a free/reduced price "fancy" phone, but you pay through the nose for that in the extra costs.

My total mobile phone costs will be €79 , not for the month but for the entire year. But for that I'll be getting €140 in call credit spread across the next 9 months. It's 700 mins in total, or about an hour a month, that suits me as I don't use my mobile a lot. The point is it just costs me €1.52 a week, great value, and that includes a new Nokia phone with headset.

€140 in credit over 9 months? What about the other 3 months?

Oracle

Sorry, yes, it's actually €140 over 12 months of 2007 (I mean I've 9 months left!)

whisht

€20 would cover that

Funkstard

I've never been able to get AFT working on my mobile (Nokia 6131). Cheers for all the advice, the meteor offer does seem to be my best bet alright. For the people saying contract isn't worth it, I've spent this much every week since I started college, so paying €50 a month would be an immediate saving.

I would wait until next September to start it, but the free meteor-meteor calls & texts offer is ending in June sometime. I'll have to think about it.

mickoneill30

Funkstard wrote:

I'm with Vodafone RTG at the moment, and down in college spending €20 (the odd time €30) on credit a week, 95% of the contact is to my girlfriend.

They have an offer now that if you spend at least €20 per month you can get free texts for the month or free calls to Vodafone customers every weekend from 6pm Friday - 8am Monday. Should save you a few quid anyway.

seanironmaiden

there's 2 new tariffs with Vodafone aswell. they're much better than the last ones and texts are 11c now

Funkstard

Oh yeh I didn't see them. My current plan, social life, is gone. Advantage has the offer of being flat rate; 19c calls to Vodafone or a landline, 49c to other mobiles though. Ouch. Lifestyle has 19c calls off peak, 49c at peak times.

I'm not sure which one to go for; the 19c Vodafone/landline calls at any time but expensive calls to other mobiles, or 19c peak/49c off peak for any calls.

I'm thinking of my parents and family mostly, none of which are on Vodafone. I suppose I can just ring the house though. I dunno. I suppose then the flat rate Advantage offer makes more sense - no more telling my girlfriend I can only ring her after 6!

Sam Vimes

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

To the OP, Vodafone have a tariff that offers unlimited calls to Vodafone numbers. Think it is €69 a month.

meteor has a similar but better offer. free meteor-meteor calls and texts + 300 minutes to other networks for €50. i realised there aren't as many minutes included but its €19 a month less to get unlimited own network calls.

then calls outside your minutes are the same price as vodafone and texts are 4c cheaper (9 instead of 13).


and if you find that 300 minutes to other networks isn't enough, you can go up to 400 for 60

Oracle wrote:

Contract is never cheaper because you're paying in advance to something you may or may not use. The only perk is they give you a free/reduced price "fancy" phone, but you pay through the nose for that in the extra costs.

My total mobile phone costs will be €79 , not for the month but for the entire year. But for that I'll be getting €140 in call credit spread across the next 9 months. It's 700 mins in total, or about an hour a month, that suits me as I don't use my mobile a lot. The point is it just costs me €1.52 a week, great value, and that includes a new Nokia phone with headset.

yes, for someone such as yourself who never uses your phone, bill pay is a bad idea. but an 80 a month pre pay cost could drop below 50 on a bill phone

here's an example of how its better. o2 currently does the SE k800 for 399 on pre pay. but if you buy it on the lowest bill pay tariff (20 a month), the phone is 200.

if you pay the minimum commitment for 12 months the total cost is €420.

o2 currently has an offer for double minutes for the first 6 months so over the year you'd get 720 minutes and 600 texts.

you're only paying €20 more than the pre pay price, so if i exclude the texts for simplicity, you'd effectively pay 2c per minute. if i were to include the texts it would be even cheaper.

Mr. Incognito

I was with Vodafone for a year on a bill phone.

Nightmare. Never again. Over charged. Terrible customer servce. They dont give a s**t.

Moved to meteor on the prepay option and making HUGE savings. Loads of people actually have meteor now with 087 086 numbers so you save on meteor to meteor calls all the time and meteor to meteor is free (my girlfriend is also on meteor)

Urban Weigl

SetantaL wrote:

I was with Vodafone for a year on a bill phone.

Nightmare. Never again. Over charged. Terrible customer servce. They dont give a s**t.

Moved to meteor on the prepay option and making HUGE savings. Loads of people actually have meteor now with 087 086 numbers so you save on meteor to meteor calls all the time and meteor to meteor is free (my girlfriend is also on meteor)

Meteor to Meteor calls aren't free unless you're a bill customer. They're certainly not free for prepay/PAYG customers.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Webtexts are your friend!, they save me a fortune

angeldelight

destraynor wrote:

callcosts.ie will help suss this out for you

They have a calculator
http://callcosts.ie/mobile_phones/Mobile_Calculator.123.LE.asp

Have you tried using that calculator? I've tried it a few different times and each time, when I put in what I use at the moment, the minimum it can show me a plan for is 120 per month on 3, when I'm only paying about 55-60 per month on o2.

barrett1965

BostonB wrote:

I find moving to contract means you use the phone more and any savings are negated. With prepay your discipline is much better leading to spending less.

Great point!

besty

sean_keevey wrote:

Webtexts are your friend!, they save me a fortune

Agreed. Wireless broadband at home and college with a laptop around most of the time saves alot of text charges. Between that and using purchased text bundles, I think I get reasonable bang for my buck.