Help me make sense of mobile phone tariffs...... please!!!!

[misty]

OK, I've got a contract with 02 (where you pay line rental by d/d) and last month, my bill was for £18.50. £13 of that was for the line rental, and only £1.20 was for calls so you can see I'm not a big phone user - make a couple of quick calls home, and maybe 5 texts per month.

So, I think I would be better off with a pay as u go deal - I would be able to use my existing phone and purchase another sim card from another provider.

Does anyone know who is the best provider to go for, when you don't make many calls?
Also, if you are buying the top-up cards, is there always an expiry date on them? How long do you normally get to use them?

Any advice would be gratefully received!!

Think so -
It depends on your contract but can buy Pay as you go Phones from about £50
Which provider depends on if you regularly phone another mobile - avoid T mobile cos their calls get cheaper the more you make. so you would be at the expensive end of the tarif
That 's about the limit of my knowledge have a chat with someone like the Link shops they have all the tariffs on display

misty, I have a pay as you go deal with Virgin, but it works like a contract phone because they set up a Direct Debit and just take what you've used each month. Some months mine is under £1 but if you happen to have a heavy month you never run out of credit and if you take it abroad you don't have to charge it up before you go. (Virgin Mobile . You can switch for £10.)

Also if you text other Virgin phones it's only 3p a text. Not sure how their other rates compare.

If you find another provider you'd rather use don't forget that instead of top-up cards you can get one of those swipe cards to use at the supermarket or wherever. Minimum is £5 on those, not £10.

Mind you there are loads of contract deals that give you free calls in your line rental, if you tell O2 you want to switch they may come up with a better deal.

I have t-mobile...its something like 30p a min for calls if you dont make many then drops if you spend £10, something like that, i only ring someone maybe once a week for 2 mins and spend the rest of my credit on texting which is 10p a text. My £20 lasts me a good month and a half and thats with 5 plus texts a day.
So if you swopped to them and rang home once or twice a week and texted only once or twice week it would average out at under a pound a week.
Better than your current deal...loads better!

If you text a lot, Orange pay as you go do a really good deal where for £19.99 a year (paid in one go), you get 5 free texts a day.

I could be wrong, but I don't think there's expiry dates on credit anymore. You can also top up by debit or credit card (phoning a freephone number given by your provider) and with a top up swipe card (accepted at loads of shops).

Sorry, know you said you don't text much - meant to say if you WANT to text a lot!!

ooooh! so many to choose from.... thanks everyone so far for all yr replies - the virgin pay monthly looks a good one so far, thanks Janh, have asked 02 about a better deal and all they can offer is their low tariff at £8.50 per month with 400 free minutes - but if I can get a deal with virgin for just the cost of the calls, even better!
It's so confusing isn't it? I've just spent all evening looking up the different tariffs etc, and I like to think I've got my wits about me, but they don't make it easy for you.
I'm now off to sort out my One-Tel bill - just found out that £13 of this months bill is down to random premium rate numbers being dialled - DP denies all knowledge of them, and I've just tried dialling one and it's a fax machine...... so now don't know if the computer is trying to dial a fax number automatically without us knowing about it ho hum.......

I have a contract with O2 and they offered me 3 months free line rental to stay (didn't upgrade but simply said I wouldn't cancel). Just bought dd a Sendo mobile phone from Woollies (19.99) with Virgin SIM card and £5 worth of free calls. Also if you register for their GLUE scheme for every person you recommend (up to 8 in 12 months) for a SIM (£10) or phone (variable) from their call centre 0845 6000 789 you get £10 worth of free airtime. So if dh signs up for a SIM card for £10 he'll get £5 worth of free calls and you'll get £10.

Just passing on good fortune.

I'm going to go for the Virgin sim card deal - does anyone want to use me as a referral if you are registered under their 'glue' scheme???? just contact me direct if so

glue scheme? what's that?

janh - sexgoddess posted about this - it's on the virgin website, something about every time you refer someone to them, you get £10 free airtime????

Misty - Watchdog had a scam on the monday prog, I think the details are on their website (bbc) but it is a computer virus dialing premium rate nos - Watchdog tells you what to do about it.....just in case!!

Oh, well, I'll bag it please, misty, if nobody else does - how do I do it?

(I bought a Virgin phone for DS2 not that long ago, nobody told me!!!)

katiemac - thanks for that, I did see the beginning of watchdog and heard them mention the scam, but then didn't watch all of the show! This was before I looked at my online bill, so wasn't aware of the problem.
Had a look at the regulators ICSTIS site - they list all the premium rate numbers and what they are for...... the 2 numbers which appear on my statement are in relation to 'digibox interactive games' or in other words, my pesky DS1 has been looking at the sky games, to see if they are 'pay to play' and going a step too far, so that he actually connected to the game. When I spoke to him about it today, he immediately confessed but promised me he hadn't actually played them Even worse, I made him cry
So, I've tried to get premium rate numbers barred by OneTel but they don't do this yet (can you believe this, a telecoms company that won't bar a number?????), and Sky hasn't got a way of forcing someone to enter a PIN number to play these drasted games - grrrrr! There must be a way round this......

janh - no probs. The details are here - I have to call the helpline and give them yr details so not sure if you want to pass those on to me (I won't abuse them, promise!). Also, not entirely sure if doing this will affect my deal so I could check with them when I phone to make sure.
Email me direct if you want me to go ahead

OK, misty, thanks!