@forumfairy Yes, that seems to be the remaining public clue as to the availability of Vodafone Family on PayM! I'm fairly sure that those Ts&Cs are actually the ones that have been around for years, as I remember them well from setting up a family group in about 2008 - also, they're undated, which is a clue that they're long-standing, as the more recent stuff includes a date stamp.
But can I ask you, as a recent Forum member, if you remember how you found your way to the list of PAYG Extras? I have it bookmarked, but the ways in which I used to be able to get there by "following my nose" don't seem to be there any longer. There used to be links in http://www.vodafone.co.uk/shop/bundles-and-sims/pay-as-you-go-plans/ and http://www.vodafone.co.uk/explore/benefits/ but now I can only find a link somewhere in the Support pages, or by using the Search box in the red banner. The lists of Extras are definitely being maintained, since the disappearance of Family from the PayM list left a gap for a while, but that has now been tidied up - so it's not that it's an expired page that hasn't been hidden.
As a PAYG enthusiast, I find it frustrating that the information seems so hard to find. The overall PAYG offering seems amazingly flexible, with a choice of the 4 different BVBs or the various Freebies, and the assortment of Extras to supplement them - and you can throw the whole lot up in the air each month, and re-tune your package to suit your immediate needs. Though it's quite hard work, so sticking with the same pattern month-to-month is undoutedly easier. But the information needs to be easily available if customers are to take advantage of the flexibility.
Though none of this is to suggest that PAYG, or indeed anything that Vodafone offers on the contract side, is really the answer to the original enquiry. The first 100 texts would come in slightly cheaper on a SIMO deal plus the international text extra, but additional texts would then be 35p a throw. So PAYG at 24p a throw would be the better bet, but it still adds up rather frighteningly; and it's pre-pay, so you'd have to "feed the meter" rather than pay the damage at the end of the month.
BTW, something not made clear in the discussion thus far is that incoming texts, unless from a premium number, aren't chargeable. So the texts from the remote modems, which would presumably have their own local arrangements, wouldn't be part of the count. Vodafone UK SIMs in the remote modems could cost a fortune - 49p per text on PAYG, 35p plus home rate on PayM, if they're in Aus.
