Seems pointless going billpay!

cormie

Times seem to be changing, it used to be a case where billpay would give you a better all round deal if you were getting the usage out of your allowance and to sweeten the deal, you could get heavily subsidised phones by committing yourself to a 12 month deal.

Now it seems all the best offers are on sim only/1 month plans, there's some cracking deals out there sim only, much better than what seems to be available on bill pay!

I'm currently looking to upgrade my phone and what I could always just do in the past was rely on an upgrade I was eligible for. I'm after the Razr I and tried Meteor, I can pay €50 for the phone to sign up to a plan for €30p/m of 200 min/texts and 1gb data. The same €30 can easily get me unlimited calls/texts and data with various providers at the moment on a sim only pack.

Are the days of signing up to a contract for a cheap way to get a phone while still getting a good usage bundle gone? The next plan up (which I would have got the phone for free) was €50 but only for something like 400min/text 2gb data, that's still LESS than what you can get on sim only at about €25 a month, so 18 month contract by an extra €25 p/m is €450 extra when you can get the phone for about €350 PAYG (or sim free online).

I used to always wonder why people didn't just sign up to a contract and pay a few quid a month rather than spending a few hundred EURO on a phone from adverts.ie, but now it seems much of a muchness.

What's everyone else doing these days when they want a new/upgraded phone??

_Kaiser_

Well I pay emobile €35 a month for unlimited everything (calls, texts, data -well 15GB so practically unlimited) and I usually just get whatever the best phone is when the time comes to renew - currently a Galaxy Note 2

In between then I buy and sell the phone if I fancy a change as I tend to get bored of phones after a few months.. I've gone from a Desire HD to a SGS2, to a Note 1, and now the Note 2 over the last 2/3 years.

The Note 2 will take some beating though - fantastic phone!

cormie

I can't see an emobile plan for €35 a month as you described? I see one for €32 (online exclusive) but there's no phone option with it, so when you say "when the time to renew comes", when would that be?

Am I better off just buying a phone ready to go or from amazon or the likes now I wonder? It seems there's no great deals anymore for bill pay when you want to get a new phone.

StaticNoise

If you're an Eircom customer you can get a phone thrown in. If you're really smart, go for the cheapest thing that Eircom offer, just to get an account number, and sign up with that.

cormie

Are you not only saving €5/10 for having an Eircom account? What plan would you suggest as it seems I'd be paying a minimum of about €35 for any plan and it'd still give less than the sim only monthly plans (with no phone).

I remember I got a great deal where if you signed up to 12 months with emobile @ 19eur a month, you got a free HTC desire.

Doesn't seem to be anything like that around now so I'm not sure what way I should "upgrade" to get a new phone?

Caliden

cormie wrote: »

Are you not only saving €5/10 for having an Eircom account? What plan would you suggest as it seems I'd be paying a minimum of about €35 for any plan and it'd still give less than the sim only monthly plans (with no phone).

I remember I got a great deal where if you signed up to 12 months with emobile @ 19eur a month, you got a free HTC desire.

Doesn't seem to be anything like that around now so I'm not sure what way I should "upgrade" to get a new phone?

There's certain plans that emobile provide to Eircom customers only and there's other they provide that have a hefty discount.

cormie

Is there anywhere these plans are advertised?

I see on meteor.ie I can get 200m/200t/1gb data for €25.41 per month and get the phone I want for €50, this is an 18 month contract and the same plan is €30.something in the shop.

The emobile deals seem to work out more expensive from what I've seen?

ShadowHearth

Interesting topic here. I am on prepay for the last 10 years. I want to upgrade my phone, but I cannot justify throwing so much money on one now.

This meteor offer really interest me. I could get Nokia 820 or Experia T for 29eu on 25eu monthly plan.

Question is, will the want a deposit of something stupid like 300eu? Which will just put me in to position, where I might as well just buy the damn thing and stay prepay.

The other thing, if I change from O2 prepay. Will they just send new SIM card and it will be activated only when I get new phone? ( keeping my own number ) or it will mean that I will be with no phone number for few days?

Prodigious

I pay €10 a month for unlimited calls and texts to all networks. What can be better?

king size mars bar

Prodigious wrote: »

I pay €10 a month for unlimited calls and texts to all networks. What can be better?

who are you with?

Prodigious

48months.ie

The deal is no longer there for brand new customers, but they still have pretty unbelievable deals going.

Cathalog

Another deal worth considering, if you're mainly a texter.

three.ie (Prepay)
€20 top-up per month
Unlimited texts (any-network)
Unlimited weekend calls (any-network)
Free 3-to-3 calls (any-time)
Unlimited data (fair usage policy: 15GB)
Then you have €20 to spend on calls, etc.
One other plus is that you can roam in the UK and call/text/ use data without any additional charge.

For me, the question was whether to go with 48 or 3. I guess it was 3's unlimited internet that sealed it, and the fact that you have leftover credit to spend on top of all the other stuff.

EDIT: as a comparison.

48-
€20
Unlimited texts
Unlimited anytime calls any-network
3GB Data
I believe it's 30m / 50mins to landlines

But you don't get spare credit, meaning that you absolutely must top up every 30 days. (Or else you go completely off the radar :P ) With 3, I can usually squeeze 33-35 days out of €20.

cormie

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Interesting topic here. I am on prepay for the last 10 years. I want to upgrade my phone, but I cannot justify throwing so much money on one now.

This meteor offer really interest me. I could get Nokia 820 or Experia T for 29eu on 25eu monthly plan.

Question is, will the want a deposit of something stupid like 300eu? Which will just put me in to position, where I might as well just buy the damn thing and stay prepay.

The other thing, if I change from O2 prepay. Will they just send new SIM card and it will be activated only when I get new phone? ( keeping my own number ) or it will mean that I will be with no phone number for few days?

Sometimes they do require a deposit, but this can be used to pay the first few bills too, so if they needed a 200eur deposit, you wouldn't need to pay a bill for 8 months I think?


See the problem is, €25 for 200 texts, 200 minutes and 1GB data is actually ok, but if your usage will end up being higher, then it might be a bad contract to get into considering you can get a rolling monthly contract sim only that's giving unlimited texts, minutes and data for pretty much the same price. Once you need that bit extra, the bill pay plans tend to get a good bit more expensive at €45/50 in which case it definitely would not make sense to get a phone with one of these plans since you can get them so much cheaper on the rolling sim only plans.

cormie

Cathalog wrote: »

Another deal worth considering, if you're mainly a texter.

three.ie (Prepay)
€20 top-up per month
Unlimited texts (any-network)
Unlimited weekend calls (any-network)
Free 3-to-3 calls (any-time)
Unlimited data (fair usage policy: 15GB)
Then you have €20 to spend on calls, etc.
One other plus is that you can roam in the UK and call/text/ use data without any additional charge.

For me, the question was whether to go with 48 or 3. I guess it was 3's unlimited internet that sealed it, and the fact that you have leftover credit to spend on top of all the other stuff.

This is another good one, but again, companies seem to be offering their best deals to the rolling monthly's whereas before it seemed it was all about getting you into a contract and giving you a phone to entice you in.

Kristopherus

Cathalog wrote: »

Another deal worth considering, if you're mainly a texter.

three.ie (Prepay)
€20 top-up per month
Unlimited texts (any-network)
Unlimited weekend calls (any-network)
Free 3-to-3 calls (any-time)
Unlimited data (fair usage policy: 15GB)
Then you have €20 to spend on calls, etc.
One other plus is that you can roam in the UK and call/text/ use data without any additional charge.

For me, the question was whether to go with 48 or 3. I guess it was 3's unlimited internet that sealed it, and the fact that you have leftover credit to spend on top of all the other stuff.

EDIT: as a comparison.

48-
€20
Unlimited texts
Unlimited anytime calls any-network
3GB Data
I believe it's 30m / 50mins to landlines

But you don't get spare credit, meaning that you absolutely must top up every 30 days. (Or else you go completely off the radar :P ) With 3, I can usually squeeze 33-35 days out of €20.

You can now also get the sim only Classic Flex Max Plan for €20.33 a month from Three on a rolling 30-day contract. A no brainer to me.:)

_Kaiser_

cormie wrote: »

I can't see an emobile plan for €35 a month as you described? I see one for €32 (online exclusive) but there's no phone option with it, so when you say "when the time to renew comes", when would that be?

Am I better off just buying a phone ready to go or from amazon or the likes now I wonder? It seems there's no great deals anymore for bill pay when you want to get a new phone.

Well ok, I suppose my situation is a bit different..

It was originally €70 per month or thereabouts 2 years ago, but after a stream of mistakes on their part, escalations within the company, eircom corporate and comreg on mine, I now pay €35 for everything for life.

As such I get a new phone every 18 months but as I mentioned I frequently sell and replace them in between as well (good ole adverts mostly)

cormie

That sounds good alright.

For the rest of us, seems like bill pay is no longer a way to get a decent phone at a good price and I think this is mainly due to the fact it's possible to get such better deals on rolling monthly sim only packs.

Seems you can easily get all your usage covered with a decent amount of credit left over for about €20 a month.

Compare this to the cheapest option on Meteor (which I think is cheaper than Emobiles cheapest and certainly cheaper than o2's) where it's €25.41 a month for 200t/200m/1GBd, which isn't a bad deal by last years standards, well if you don't use much more than 200/200/1gb then it's probably a good option, but for anyone with heavier usage, it makes much more sense to go with the rolling monthly as you'd probably be paying say €40 or €50 for the next plan up and even at €40, that's €15 extra x 18 months so €270 plus the €50 for the phone, so you may as well just buy it new at €350 at that rate if you suspect at all you'll be going over usage of the €25 plan.