Sim Card Price Increase

[JohnS1]

I renewed my Virgin broadband, TV and landline contract last month. Yesterday I got a text message from O2 telling me my monthly Sim only price was going up from ~£7.00 to ~ £12.00 a month. I went to the local O2 shop today and they told me this has happened as I have renewed my Virgin contract and lost the discount that was being applied to my Sim. Virgin are of course saying it has nothing to do with renewing my contract and it is an O2 issue?

My Sim deal was originally with Virgin om a rolling monthly contract until migration to O2. I understand even with price increase that the cost is still reasonable but that is besides the point. The best O2 could offer me yesterday was 1GB of data for £20!

[pgn]

If you are on a Monthly SIMO deal, go look at uSwitch, you will get a cheaper deal for SIMO there than what O2 offer, still with O2, @JohnS1 - O2 are 12 month contract, but giffgaff is a rolling monthly one:

To move, help here: Guide: Cancelling Your Contract 

Good luck!

[Enlli]

Moving to giffgaff may sound good but you may well have to forgo your Volt speed boost with Virgin

[pgn]

Only at next renewal with Virgin, @Enlli -

https://www.o2.co.uk/termsandconditions/mobile/supercharged

1. You will not be able to unenroll from the benefits of this Offer once they have been activated, unless you decide to cancel both your Eligible O2 Tariff and Qualifying Virgin Media Purchase (or if the Qualifying Virgin Media Purchase registered at your addressed is cancelled by the account holder). Please note you may still be eligible for (and subsequently continue to receive) the benefits if you retain either one of your Eligible O2 Tariff or Qualifying Virgin Media Purchase.

[Enlli]

@pgn As with all things VMO2 there have been incidents on the Virgin Forum where this was not the case despite the fine words

[pgn]

So it goes, weasel words abound with VMO2, @JohnS1 and @Enlli - you pays your money, you takes your chance 🤷

[JohnS1]

Thanks for the responses. My main gripe here is lack of warning this would happen. i thought he migration from Virgin to O2 included your current terms and conditions. There was no warning to say O2 could revoke the discount.

I could get an O2 Sim from uSwitch and cancel the current  but I dread to think of the confusion this will cause O2 and Virgin with regards to volt benefits etc.😒

[pgn]

If you already have VOLT enabled on the Virgin side, there will be no change there.

On the O2 side, if enabled already, when you drop to an O2 SIMO from any reseller, eg uswitch, the benefits will stop for a few days and reactivate within the week. My last O2 upgrade, a bundled handset and tariff from a reseller, left me bereft of VOLT benefits for a while, but it all caught up with itself within about a week, from memory, @JohnS1 

Migration from VM SIM to O2 SIM would have resulted in some adjustment to get you to a roughly similar deal on the O2 side without costing you any more - probably explained in a long-lost mailshot or email at the time, and now VM have revoked the discount and left you to look for a cheaper O2 deal elsewhere. Not uncommon, sadly.

[JohnS1]

Thank you for the advice. I think it's the best way to go. I can get an O2 sim from uSwitch for less than what the increase would be with more data.

[JohnS1]

Just to hopefully wrap this up, I phoned O2 today. It sounds like the message I got was incorrect. It's almost a year since my 30 day contract migrated to O2 and the message I received was for people on a 12 month contract. As mine is a rolling 30 days I'm told the price will remain as it currently is. We will find out next month, if it's not I can take another deal from uSwitch or Moneysupermarket.