Ok, I'm converted to GiffGaff :) [ Edited ]

[ianmcrv]

I've more than halved my bill, I can stay on PAYG with 10p per minute phone calls when I'm poor or at any time I can purchase a £10 goodybag and for that month, starting from the date that I purchase the goodybag, I'm on contract again and don't have to worry about credit with 500 minutes, unlimited text & 1GB internet.

My PAYG credit stays there and at the end of the goodybag month date it just reverts back to PAYG or I can manually purchase another goodybag or I can set the goodybag option to auto-renew so that would be constant 'contract' at £10 per month.

The thing I really like about GiffGaff is that 'I' decide exactly how I want to tailor my payment options!

I kept my old number by getting a PAC code from my old provider and entering it on the GiffGaff website, couple of days later my GiffGaff phone was ringing on my old number

Very easy to switch & great savings!

Oh, and I love the drop-down messages that you get after each phone call to keep you apprised of your account situation! I know you can switch those off but I prefer to leave them on. No horrid surprises

[kim_x head honcho]

Very similar to my experience. The hardest part is getting the previous provider to actually give you the PAC. Should one ever need though, I have heard that the process of porting out of giffgaff is as easy as porting in, beating every other network by a mile.

[ianmcrv]

I got my PAC from O2 by using the chat client on their website!

I chatted (typed) to a nice chap and I told him I was resolute in cancelling my contract and that I needed my PAC code, had to answer a couple of security questions and wait a bit but I just set the chat window top left in my screen and after about five minutes he came back and guess what he offered me as an incentive to stay with BT?

An iPhone 4, someone's sloppy seconds I should imagine Then I'd have had to sign up for a new 24-month contract! Plus stay at my then current rate of over £20 per month, DOUBLE that I now pay on GiffGaff.

And they call that an incentive?

Someone has their wires crossed, if they'd offered me an iPhone 5 and a cut rate on my bill this customer of over 5 years would have stayed with them.

[ma2013 prophet]

I'm glad your experience was good, and welcome aboard! Yeah, the £10 Goodybag is great, now with the 500 minutes, 1GB data (it's not unlimited, you need the £12 Goodybag for that) and unlimited texts!

I've been with giffgaff a few months now for my phone (longer for my tablet SIM card) and it's been great, never had any problems so far and porting in with my old number (still the same from 1997!) was easy as pie too.

[ianmcrv]

Thanks ma2013 I've edited my post to reflect that the £10 goodybag has 1gb internet.

Still way more than needed in a month of web browsing syncing, emailing etc. you'd normally only use a fraction of that, it's only if you're downloading films on your phone that you'd need more..... which I have been known to do in the past

[ma2013 prophet]

LOL, yeah I stream music (Amazon MP3 and listen to TuneIn radio) as well as watch iPlayer on my Samsung Galaxy S3 (I'm only mentioning it because of the big screen, not being pretentious)....so I end up using a little more than a GB (OK, last month I used 4.5GB), so I use the £12 Goodybag

[kim_x head honcho]

My experience of the retentions talk:

I thought I'd avoid the standard retentions talk by requesting the code on the online chat - how wrong I was. Despite my telling them that the better deal I now had was the £12 giffgaff goodybag, a stripped down version of their offeing owned by them, they still made a comical attempt to try and keep me. I said that I wanted unlimited internet and they offered me a deal with no internet for £10.50, then they offered me something else for £16.50, the only thing that was the same was the minutes I think, with less internet and texts than I had on my existing deal; the internet allowance being my reason for leaving. This was after they made me jump through the hoop of requesting the code from a Desktop PC, after 15 minutes on the chat from my phone.

[ianmcrv]

It might be fun to figure out exactly how cheap GiffGaff can be to confirm our choice to move

Imagine a couple who talk to each other a lot, or a family or a group of friends.

Firstly if they order a free SIM each

From the link in my signature please hey, it's my thread

Then apart from the fact that I get 500 points for each SIM they order, they also get £5 free credit.

Now they do each have to activate each SIM with £10 credit and if they leave it on the default of PAYG then they each have £15 credit.

Am I correct in assuming the following....

They can call and text each other for free, if they are talking to another GiffGaff phone it's free but each call will be cut-off after 30minutes (free GG to GG calls only) so they'd have to redial but it's still free.

They do need to top up once every three months but theoretically if they only called each other or other GiffGaff numbers then it will cost them £10 every three months?

Realistically they are going to call other networks or landlines at some point but these calls are only 10p per minute?

How much are texts to other networks?

I believe that if you turn on mobile Data then you will be charged 20p on PAYG and that's the minimum charge but it's also the maximum charge? 20p per day that you have this turned on while on PAYG ?

All this is without considering the goodybags options.

[pedromap kingpin]

welcome to giffgaff, happy you are enjoying your time here

if you need any help and hope you don't, you can always ask a question righ here on this forum.

[ianmcrv]

Really? what right here on this forum? Oh! is that what it's for!

You mean like those questions I asked above?

Well, thanks for clearing all that up Pedro