"Your balance was too low to get your monthly allowance"

[Anonymous]

I used to have O2 home broadband, and got a reduced tariff if I topped up a O2 PAYG phone sim every month or quarter (can't remember which). Anyway, because I didn't use the O2 sim in my main mobile phone, I built up a big balance which I'd use in a spare phone when travelling abroad. I'm no longer using O2 home broadband so have stopped topping up the balance, and I now have just just over £30 left.

When I log into my account I now see a message saying "Your balance was too low to get your monthly allowance". Since I don't use O2 much I don't have a clue what this means. What monthly allowance are they referring to, and why don't I have enough for it? 

I want to continue using it on an ad-hoc PAYG basis, mainly using 'O2 travel' when abroad and making use of the £1.99/50MB mobile data deal - but only a couple of times a year.  Has something changed that means I can no longer do this, but need a "monthly allowance" instead? And if so, why is a £30+ balance insufficient for it?

[Anonymous]

Good heavens. My PAYG SIM of choice (ie not one I took out to get cheap home broadband) is from 3 and I pay 1p per MB.  I can accept a few pennies when I transition from mobile to wifi and back, so I never have to think about whether mobile data is turned on or off - I can't imagine what a hassle that must be for regular users. But £1 is a bit steep for just turning the phone on to find the code that O2 send me to authorise a discussion with a customer service rep. It's good that they reimbursed me. 

I can see my £33 wouldn't last long if I used this SIM on this tariff in a smartphone - although the nice O2 customer rep said it wouldn't happen again, so hopefully once my account's been transferred and I'm back on my old tariff I'll be OK. If not, I'll burn it and bin it - I just want to use the remaining balance as sensibly as possible and if it's going to be used up during conversations with O2 customer service reps it's hardly worth spending time trying to get the thing to work the way I want. 

[Anonymous]

Hi @Anonymous 

Web daily, which is the data package you  are currently on will charge £1 per day when the data on your phone connects, it gives u 50mb to use on that day, any remaining unused data will be lost at 23.59.

If you want to keep your tariff you need to bear this in mind. You also change your tariff to the international sim tariff that will prevent this from happening.You don't have to top up every month and when you do no money gets deducted for the bundle, so when u top up u get some txt and data for free. Hope this helps

International Sim

Call mobiles and landlines abroad from the UK for just 1p a minute. Plus, you can text anywhere in the world from the UK for 12p. And you get O2 minutes and O2 texts plus some data to use in the UK too.

Check out all of our call charges and terms.

International Sim Monthly top-up O2 Minutes O2 Texts Data 3G/4G Plus you get

£10	N/A	3000	50MB	3G	Free: Priority and O2 Wifi
£15 +	3000	3000	100MB	3G	Free: Priority and O2 Wifi