Apple Watch mobile plan activation.

[Maxsquared]

Seems to be on this forum a lot last couple of days.

I've just received the new and shiny Apple Watch SE cellular from Apple today, of course I will set it all up, as it's my first cellular watch, am excited to active the mobile plan. But to my surprise, once I logged onto One Number web portal, I got a message saying 'I've reached the top of the mountain' apparently I reached maximum amount of mobile service on my account.  And I was advised to change my subscriptions in my Vodafone app, or to contact Vodafone support. But there isn't an option on my Vodafone app for subscriptions.

Fine. Another chat with the lovely chat team, I first chatted with someone in support, then he/she redirected me to the sale team, where the lovely Gavin persuaded me to take on the additional line with a different number for £7 month a month for the Apple Watch, I agreed to it, as it's inline what Vodafone charges. After the chat and 7 hours later, I am still getting the same message.

Reading other posts, I learnt that some people manage to sort out this issue by remove Watch backups, this clearly doesn't apply to me, as I am getting the same message on a browse on my laptop, therefore the problem is not on my device. And someone suggested your tech team have to change something in the settings on my account for this to work - what's this magic setting? Worst, some people said it never worked for them (oh please Vodafone don't let this happen to me, I do like Vodafone compare all those other **** networks I used before)

Questions are:

1. Where do I go from here? Would you be able to do those magic settings for me?

2. Once magic setting is applied to my account, will I be charged again by signing up Apple Watch plan through my iPhone again? Will I be charged twice?

Thank you,

[garetc]

If you have the additional or ‘secondary plan’ on your account already then it should just pair up when you set up cellular on the Apple Watch.

Sometimes you need to wait for the order to complete and close before it will show on you account. 

If it’s not working then you need to contact Vodafone technical support and get them to sort this for you. They can push the order to complete and/or manually go through and link the eSIM to your One Number account. 

[Maxsquared]

Thanks for your reply, I've called them up and took up an additional line. And they told me I needed to wait 24 hours, and it's already 24 hours, nothing seems happening.

Do you know if they have a direct technical support number rather than their 191? Cheers

[garetc]

Sadly there’s no alternative/direct number you just have to battle through, sometimes being misrouted 4-5 times until you get some someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. 

I’ve had a similar problem today with the message you’re seeing although I purchased my watch from Vodafone and it should activate.

I was transferred 6 times, twice to sales and each time I’ve had to explain everything again because they don’t warm transfer and/or don’t listen.

[Maxsquared]

What the *** is with Vodafone.

Have you got yours sorted?

[garetc]

Haha - it’s just complicated, for us we just want things to work, as do they for their customers but sometimes things goes wrong and take a lot of effort to fix. I hope this isn’t an early indication of how the new iPhone 12 Pro’s pre-order’s are going to work...

My order is still open which means it hasn’t provisioned the One Number / Secondary plan but I’m told when that happens I’ll be able to add on the cellular plan. The order ‘should’ complete within 24 hours. 

In the meantime I can use the watch as non-cellular. I’ve not got a run planned today anyway so it’s no drama. Tomorrow on the other hand I might have something to say if it doesn’t work.

[Maxsquared]

Sounds like you are on the same boat as me... Good luck mate hope Vodafone can get it sorted... There are couple people on Twitter are having the same issue as well.

[ec1]

Surely they could have created a detailed dedicated pdf on their website this week for customers upgrading apple watches and wanting to port over the vodafone service from their old watch. Its an absolute mess but would have been so easy to update their website in advance of apple's biggest product launch of the last six months!

[Tash]

Hi @ec1, we do have a dedicated eSIM page which should help with any questions you have on how they work and our process with activating them depending on whether this is a new line, you're looking to change your physical SIM to an eSIM, or you're a brand new customer.

We've also got a page which runs through the steps to link your number to your secondary device (such as a smart watch). Hopefully these will help to answer any queries you have - if not, pop back to us on the thread here 😊

@Maxsquared @garetc Please do keep us updated on the latest with your eSIMs here! 

[garetc]

Was sorted today, someone manually pushed the order through and now I have cellular on my cellular watch!