Phones

[kingandy]

Hmm.

Unless I've misread this, if I were to take out a new contract with T-Mobile (on more or less the same price plan), I'd be able to get a KRZR free.

Conversely, if I show my loyalty, stick with them and ask to upgrade to the same phone, I'd have to pay them £149 for the privilege. In fact, I'd have to pay £30 just to get a new RAZR (the phone I have now). If I stick with the same handset I get all of a £5/month discount.

I'd always assumed the cost of the phone was factored into the line rental and that. Now I am slightly disillusioned. I'll probably stick with it - the lovely Mr nattydreadi's friends and family discount makes it more or less worth it, along with the hassle of changing numbers around - but I was rather looking forward to a shiny new phone. Oh well, easy come.

Comments

[nattydreadi.livejournal.com]

You will probably get your bluff called if you threaten to cancel as you have the 50% mrc discount, basically it is worked out on 3 factors.

Monthly spend - bracketed to £90pm+ £70-90pm, £45-70pm, and ->£45pm.
Payment history - Do you pay on time
Time since last upgrade

Basically if you spend a wodge irrespective of your discounts, pay by DD and upgrade once every 2 years, you will get what you want.
The handset you are being asked to pay £149 for actually retails to the business at £300, you get it halfprice, because we know that if you keep spending as you currently do, we will still make profit off you next year (or maybe the year after)

The business is trying to train Customers as to the real value of handsets at the moment, the market is saturated though, so it is still a buyer's paradise, if you are willing to move custom to a different business.

Regarding upgrading vs a new contract and the costs of the phone, those are decided by retail for new connections, and CS for upgrades, different people with different agendas.

[kingandy]

Yeah that's more or less what I figured. Doing the maths, switching to a new £30pcm contract for 12 months - without the discount - would cost me more than the £150. And I'm already considering downgrading a few notches since I'm not using anywhere near my monthly minutes allowance (though I'm usually just going over on the texts).

but i'd have a shiny new phoooone...

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

Of course if you buy a new shiny un-locked phone you can easily move contracts on a sim-card only contract. You'll never be locked in for the usual 12/18 months.

[kingandy]

.... yes, the problem is not that I want to move contracts. The problem is that they won't give me a free £300 phone. I mean what's up with that?

[ed-fortune.livejournal.com]

They took the one that Tez gave me away from me when I went broke a few years ago. I might try threatening to go else where so I get a decent phone. I'm on the £15 deal though, so I hardly thiunk it matters.

[kingandy]

Oh, fwiw, I always pay on time (DD) and it's been 18 months since I signed up. I'm only paying about £15 per month (after mates rates and self-serve discounts).

That said, I use about 100 of my 300 minutes in a good month, so they're getting a certain amount of free money from me...