Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

Still reasonable, I use it myself.

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

But there is this requirement:
"To keep your account and SIM active, just make at least one £10 top-up every 120 days"

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

Their data is also incredibly expensive, £10.24 per GB.

You can buy 'boosts' for 30 days (and loose what you dont use).
By the time you have done all this, you may as well just have a monthly SIM anyway.

For example, Lebara do one for £3.95 a month.
https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/compare/sim_only_deals/

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

Depends how much data you need. I have one of these in my car so it can fetch traffic info. Costs me absolutely nothing. They don't even spam me to try to get me to upgrade.

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

That seems to good to be true.:)

My 87 year old neighbour has a fairly new tablet, which was bought to replace an elderly ipad, she only uses it to browse for bits and pieces on Amazon etc. She has no internet and relies on an old Vodaphone sim which which I suspect uses 2G, it's tortuously slow and times out more often than not. I intend to get her one of these free Three Data Reward SIMs in the hopes that it will work for her.

So thank you so much for the link Mr S and sorry for the long rambling post..

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

How much data do you get for £3.95 a month as it doesn't seem to say? That looks to be a very good deal as the cheapest that I could find (also with Lebara) worked out at £4.38 a month for 3GB for the first year (£5 per month, with the first 3 months at half price on a one month rolling contract).

Depending on how much data you get it looks like it would be better to use my deal for 3 months then your deal thereafter.

For the moment, 1p Mobile suits me though as this costs £2.50 a month and covers what I need. If my phone/data use increased I would certainly reevaluate the situation.

I did take into account that their data is expensive when used on the odd occasion, but this would be paid for out of credit that would just be sat there doing nothing.

If you take this into account and factor in that any data used is in effect subsidising the cost of the very cheap calls/texts, I still find it to be good value.

It all depends on how much you use your phone and whether this is for data/texts/calls as to which is better for each individual user.

---------- Post added at 18:24 ---------- Previous post was at 18:19 ----------

Oh, this looks to be a brilliant product.

If I get one of these could I put it into my dual SIM phone and only start to use up my 1p Mobile credit when I've exhausted my free monthly data allowance?

Do they warn you when you're about to use up your free allowance? If they don't, perhaps this is how they earn their money.

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

Sky did me one of those when I bought my new tablet off them.

Totally free, unlimited calls & texts, 100MB of data.

I have my normal phone with them as well, and tons of data in my piggy bank (which lasts for 3 years) so I just transfer 1 GB to it now and then, as needed.

I dont think they advertise it much (if at all) though.

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

IIRC they send a text when you are about to run out, then another when you actually do (I've only run out once). They don't charge you when you hit the limit and they couldn't anyway - they don't have any payment details. The SIM simply stops working until the next month.

You can even have up to 5 SIMs so you can get 1GB a month if you can be bothered to swap SIMs.

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

Thanks, I think i'll get one or five then :D I Don't know what the company gets out of it though!? People could potentially get by with these and nothing else if all their contacts were on Whatsapp, FB Messenger etc

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

Maybe there's a line in the T&Cs that means they can cut you off if you don't use it in the spirit it was offered? Switching between each of the 5 sims one after the other would be an easily detectable pattern.

What they get out of it is that 200MB isn't going to be anywhere near enough for some people so they'll buy a data pack or 5.

I'd completely forgotten about this product, it's go me wondering.

Spiderplant, do you get the traffic info on your phone directly using this or tether it to a satnav or the like? Is it used, in this case, with a phone or mobile hotspot device?

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

At first I assumed that SP was using the SIM in his car as a free live number to receive traffic info., but the fact that he once ran out of free data seems to suggest that it dials out for this information :shrug:

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

My car has a built-in modem. You just have to supply the SIM. As well as the traffic info, you can use it for stuff like internet radio, or even tether other devices to it.

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

Neat. I assume there's some place in the interior to put it that's easily accessible rather than something awkward?

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

It's under the glovebox on the passenger side. So you wouldn't want to change the SIM while driving :erm:

Re: Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages
 

ip mobile do a £30 12 months top up