@kwil
The real problem is that Vodafone actually offers a very good range of options for PAYG customers, and there is a great deal of flexibility, but it does make it very difficult to describe succinctly. Once you have your head around it, it all makes perfect sense, but it still isn’t easy to explain. My fellow-CCs seem inclined to the view that I’m a practitioner of some obscure black art, but that really isn’t the case – truly!
All the networks seem to have similar difficulties in describing the detail of their PAYG offerings, and I suspect it’s a case of “It would be better not to be starting from here”. When I first had a mobile phone, the question was simple – can I manage with 30 minutes a month, or do I need to go for 60 minutes? There may have been some texts involved, but I knew no-one who was likely to send or receive texts, so it wasn’t an issue for me. As the technology became better established, prices fell, and the number of minutes increased, but the real game-changer was data, which started off at a few MB a month, and has now grown to, what, 50GB a month on some contracts. But everyone has their own requirement for balance of minutes, texts and data. This makes for a wide range of Pay Monthly contracts, but at least they are generally settled for 24 months at a time. On PAYG, there are fewer options, but you can throw the whole lot up in the air every month or twoo (I do so regularly), and that’s why it’s hard to describe.
Well, that’s the theoretical/historical aspect covered, now to the detail!
I’m glad to see from @Tash’s post that the free SIMs arrive “package neutral” – I’ve also been informed of the same, but it is entirely clear to me that the four top-up options shown on the free SIM page are in order to buy one of the four Big Value Bundles. They are the products described, and it is only the BVBs to which the data rollover applies.
However, it seems that taking the “top-up later” option will give you a neutral PAYG SIM. The difference between the BVB and a Freebie is that the BVB is a package/bundle, where your £10/15/20/30 is used to buy a bundle of minutes, texts and data that lasts for 30 days; at the end of the 30 days, you have neither the £10/15/20/30 nor the allowances, and you have to buy the next one. The Freebies are different, in that your top-up is added to your balance, but provided you have topped up by £10 or more at one go, you also get an additional mini-bundle of one of mins, international mins, texts or data which you can use for 30 days, at the end of which the additional allowance disappears, but your top-up, less any services you have used outside your allowance, remains in your balance.
There is one critical difference, and I don’t understand from Natasha’s description how this is intended to work. If you add say £20 to a neutral SIM, you can then spend £10/15/20 of it to buy a BVB. But, if you want a Freebie, you need to opt in to that particular Freebie, and wait for the opt-in to take effect, and then top up with a sufficient amount to trigger the required “band” of the Freebie you want. If you top up then opt in, you will have to top up again at some point, in order to trigger the Freebie.
Hence my £5 suggestion. This is the minimum top-up, and can’t possibly trigger a BVB or Freebie. Then make sure that you’ve opted in to the Freebie which seems most advantageous (possibly Freebie Minutes?), give it time to “take”, then top up by £10 to get 150 mins, or £20 to get 500 mins, which remain available only for the next 30 days. See the questions on http://support.vodafone.co.uk/Vodafone-products-and-services/Pay-as-you-go/Vodafone-Freebies/ for details and opt-in instructions for the Freebies. After that, you eat through your balance, or you top up again to get another free allowance on top of your top-up.
One final thing to be careful of – the daily data fee is £2 if you don’t have a data allowance, so turning on mobile data pretty soon gets expensive. My regular pattern is to have a Freebie Data, and take my mins and texts out of my balance; but, when my balance had grown too big, I run in basic PAYG mode until I’ve run it down enough, then resume the Freebies!
I think tbh I’d recommend you consider setting up the phone, and getting the SIM working, before handing it over – I still have a very clear memory of the level of confusion I experienced for the first few days with my first smartphone, but largely because I needed to turn so much off in order for it to function like the mobile phones I had had previously. Once I had gained control, I gradually turned stuff on, and got the hang of it all!
I hope this “stream of consciousness” helps!
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