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Hi everyone,
Why should you join O2? That's a question we see pop up every now and then here on the O2 Community and while it's an entirely personal decision, we encourage you to pick the option that suits your needs and requirements best. We'd obviously love for that to be O2, but we understand our customers and we know every single one of them are unique - so joining O2 may not always be your best option. However, we want to recap the main reasons why you should consider joining or staying with O2, as it may help you make a decision - one way or another.
Create a plan that's unique to you
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With O2 Custom Plans, we’re the only UK network that splits out the cost of the handset and airtime and then allows you to choose your own upfront cost, monthly data, and even spread the cost of the device over 3-36 months. You can even pay off your device plan and upgrade at any time, or even flex your data up or down each month. Check out our video below explaining more about how Custom Plans works.
Full cost transparency
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Most other networks bundle the device costs within the total monthly cost they charge their customers. This means their customers may be paying more for their device than they realise. On O2 though, we ensure our customers have full transparency by showing you the total device cost before you upgrade or join us.
Reducing your bill after you've paid for your device
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We’re the only network that reduces your bill as soon as you’ve paid for the handset. Many of our competitors not only charge you more for the device, but keep charging you even after you’ve paid it off. On O2 though, as soon as you've paid off your device plan we'll automatically stop charging you for it, meaning you'll only pay for your airtime plan from that point onwards.
O2 Refresh
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O2 Refresh lets you change phones whenever you want. It works by splitting your bill into two parts: a Phone Plan and an Airtime Plan.
- The Phone Plan is the cost of the phone
- The Airtime Plan covers all your calls, texts and data
If you want to upgrade your phone, just pay off your Device Plan and you're free to upgrade while continuing to use your Airtime Plan. Plus, if you decide to keep your phone once you’ve paid it off, we'll only charge you for your Airtime Plan – so your monthly bill will go down. See community how-to guide on Refresh here.
O2 Recycle
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New phones are released all the time, and we know that from time-to-time you'll want to upgrade your device while you're still in contract. The combined power of O2 Refresh (above) and O2 Recycle makes this easier than ever.
Recycle your old tech with O2 Recycle and you'll receive a cash payment, allowing you to help cover the costs of paying off your current device plan, to then upgrade to the latest and greatest.
Recycle your old tech with O2 Recycle and you'll receive a cash payment, allowing you to help cover the costs of paying off your current device plan, to then upgrade to the latest and greatest.
New offers and experiences every day with O2 Priority
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O2 Priority is our fantastic app that features regular treats, prizes and surprises. Our offers change very regularly, so check it our every day for something new. Here's a snippet of what to expect:
- Offers on food & drink, shopping, travel, health & beauty, entertainment and sports
- Tickets to gigs and events up to 48 hours before general release
- Perks at O2 venues and events, including fast-track entry, exclusive bars and lounges, help from O2 Angels, pre-match snacks and drinks
Friends & Family, Student, Family and O2 Open discounts
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O2 offer 4 fantastic schemes to get a discount on the airtime-part of your contract in different situations:
- O2 Open - get 15% or 20% off your airtime plan depending on your tariff if you work for certain employers that qualify
- Friends & Family - 50% (if with device) or 30% (SIM-only) off your airtime plan if you have a friend or family member working for O2
- Student discount - 20% off your airtime plan if you're currently studying
- O2 Family Plan - airtime discounts of up to 50% for your family members
Check out our community guide on O2 Open, F&F and Student discounts here.
An award winning network
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We're extremely proud of our network, and we're actively investing in constantly upgrading, improving and enhancing coverage across the UK - including even the most rural of locations, such as Staylittle.
- O2 won uSwitch's Best Network Coverage award in 2018
- We're regularly bringing 4G to more and more locations
- Our coverage checker is constantly updated to reflect the most accurate coverage expectations in any given location here
- Don't use your data. Use ours. That's what you get with O2 Wifi - a 15,000 hotspot UK-wide network of fast & reliable wifi
Family life is complicated. We're here to help.
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Our gurus are here to help – they’re dedicated experts on family tech, online safety and all things O2.
- Our Family Plans come with advanced parental controls and exclusive Priority offers.
- One simple bill for all your connections and Family Plan airtime discounts of up to 50%.
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With O2 Family, you get free access to Qustodio Premium, the award-winning parental control app. It lets you keep an eye on your child’s device from your own phone, and set rules with them for how to make the most of it.
Collaboration with NSPCC
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Get help from an O2 Guru
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A phone you can’t work is like a jar you can’t open. That’s why our O2 Gurus are here to give you free help and advice.
- Our Gurus are dedicated to helping you get the most out of your device. From backing up your data, to advice on taking amazing photographs, and everything in between
- Our Guru's are also experts in family tech and parental controls, and can help you pick out your kid’s first phone, set it up, and give you advice on how they should use it
- Got an issue with your device? Use our clever tool to help fix it
- Talk to our Guru's online, in-store, and even on Social Media
We have an awesome Community
The O2 Community is very important to us as it provides a very strong platform for feedback and member insights, as well as provide a dedicated place for customers to talk, discuss, chat and help. We’re constantly looking at improving, enhancing and investing in the O2 Community to help make it the best it can be, so existing and new members alike can feel at home. It's a great place to laugh, learn, and support one another.
Check out some lovely quotes here from our existing members for reasons they've stayed on the Community. 
These are the main great things that you get as an O2 customer, but there we're sure that as a customer you have a few other benefits in mind: feel free to share your thoughts on this in the comments!
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I agree and when people come to the forum to complain about being ripped off my advice always is, get the phone back and take it to CEX.
I was simply pointing out that not everyone is unhappy with O2 recycle. We only see the complaints on here.
On the other hand, if people come to us before they send the phone off, it's a bit galling to advise them to take pictures of the phone from every angle and enclose copies of those with a covering letter, simply to ensure O2 recycle don't try and rip them off.
No-one should have to do that if the company was fair. I have never used them at all.
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@Anonymous wrote:
....... But the clue is probably in the name, as it’s a recycling service, so it may not be the best option if you’ve got something that could attract a good price if sold privately, or via specialist retailers.
It's never the best option. Customers who don't know the true value of a phone in the used handset market or just want no fuss use a recycle site and in many cases get taken to the cleaners value wise.
This company and others like them are in it to make money. They make this money out of you, the customer! The horror stories we see on here can be multiplied by X number of times.
Good luck to all who use this service.....
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Cheers for your comments so far guys! As @Cleoriff mentioned we do often see only one side of things as many members tend to come to the forum when they have issues or questions around services including O2 Recycle. @Anonymous I'll leave it up there as it's great to have your views and discussions even around challenging subjects, and as you might know we pass on all types of feedback over to the business - even about experiences that have not been so great for whatever reason, so that things can be looked into and improved for the future. 
I can see there's a lot of discussion around this one area above, however, many of you have been with O2 for many years now, and some of you have joined more recently - I would be very interested to hear what made you join in the first place and stay with us @Cleoriff, @MI5, @Anonymous, @jonsie, @welshsteve76, ? Do you have anything to add to the list above based on your experience with O2?
Cheers guys!
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I joined O2 on the recommendation of a friend. I was on Orange at the time.
She seemed to get a better deal with them than I did with Orange. Her signal was better and though we were both on PAYG, she topped up less than I did.
Add to that, she could call others on O2 for free. We were in daily contact with each other so it made sense to me. I moved to O2 and rarely regretted it.
I changed to contract when my PAYG top ups were getting ridiculous when I was in Spain so often.
That's about the time I joined this forum. The rest is history 
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