Hands0n
17th June 2009, 04:23 PM
An interesting article here .. save £70 on the deal?
With 2009 iPhone contracts, if you sign up for a longer 24 month contract you can shave a fair bit off the amount you need to pay upfront for the handset.
On the surface this looks a good deal, but for most people it wont be. The first thing to note is it doesnt make the monthly plan any cheaper and as thats already high, locking yourself in for a long time when mobile phone tariffs (elsewhere) tend to drop not rise isnt a good bet. The amount saved by going longer is easily dwarfed by the cost of the extra six months alone.
Add to that the fact that in 18 months time, if youre an iPhone type wanting the latest gizmo, by grabbing a new contract you may be able to get a new souped up version at the same or lower contract price, and it really isnt worth it. For all the info below weve looked only at 18 month contracts.
Loophole: Double up the minutes for less cost.
Like all providers, O2 operates a number of tariff levels; in this case, if you buy a cheaper contract, you'll pay more for the phone, whereas if you plump for a higher monthly cost you can get it cheaper. Yet theres a little term and condition here you can use to your advantage..
You needn't stay on that tariff for the 18-month contract; O2 lets you downgrade after 9.
Admittedly you can only drop down one tariff level, but still that makes a big difference and therefore the aim is take a more expensive tariff for 9 months so you save on the handset cost, then downgrade after nine months to save on monthly tariff.
The table below shows (in red) that it's around £10 cheaper overall to take out the £44.02/month tariff and then switch down to £34.26 at the 9 month mark. And for the first nine months youll get all those extra minutes thrown in too.
Full article and tables here ---> http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-iphone
With 2009 iPhone contracts, if you sign up for a longer 24 month contract you can shave a fair bit off the amount you need to pay upfront for the handset.
On the surface this looks a good deal, but for most people it wont be. The first thing to note is it doesnt make the monthly plan any cheaper and as thats already high, locking yourself in for a long time when mobile phone tariffs (elsewhere) tend to drop not rise isnt a good bet. The amount saved by going longer is easily dwarfed by the cost of the extra six months alone.
Add to that the fact that in 18 months time, if youre an iPhone type wanting the latest gizmo, by grabbing a new contract you may be able to get a new souped up version at the same or lower contract price, and it really isnt worth it. For all the info below weve looked only at 18 month contracts.
Loophole: Double up the minutes for less cost.
Like all providers, O2 operates a number of tariff levels; in this case, if you buy a cheaper contract, you'll pay more for the phone, whereas if you plump for a higher monthly cost you can get it cheaper. Yet theres a little term and condition here you can use to your advantage..
You needn't stay on that tariff for the 18-month contract; O2 lets you downgrade after 9.
Admittedly you can only drop down one tariff level, but still that makes a big difference and therefore the aim is take a more expensive tariff for 9 months so you save on the handset cost, then downgrade after nine months to save on monthly tariff.
The table below shows (in red) that it's around £10 cheaper overall to take out the £44.02/month tariff and then switch down to £34.26 at the 9 month mark. And for the first nine months youll get all those extra minutes thrown in too.
Full article and tables here ---> http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-iphone