Tesco Mobile Standard Plus Tariff
Tesco Mobile, like Virgin Mobile, is one of the UK’s MVNO success stories. Through their extensive in-store and online promotions, they’ve managed to net a super number of customers. I couldn’t find up to date subscriber numbers — but it’s in the millions.
Tesco just announced a new offering — Standard Plus:
Tesco Mobile has announced their latest ‘pay as you go’ tariff, Standard Plus, which offers a monthly bonus of 500 free texts or 150 free minutes when users top up by £15 or more per month.
“The new Standard Plus tariff is the perfect option for people who top-up regularly and want great value from their mobile service provider, combined with pay as you go flexibility,†said Andy Dewhurst, Chief Executive Officer of Tesco Mobile. “We want to offer our ‘pay as you go’ customers similar bonus airtime or text benefits to those of pay-monthly customers.â€
I suspect that for a subset of Tesco Mobile’s subscribers, this will be an excellent deal.
This is a perfect example of how the UK differs from the US in that prepaid is looked down upon here as a low revenue entity and in the UK and I’m sure most other countries of the world is perceived as a normal revenue stream.
Posted by Jeb on January 22nd, 2008 at 4:02 pm.I’m not sure how true this still is but previously you were not even able to add data especially 3G onto a prepaid plan here. It may have changed by now, but that is pathetic.
I have just rec’d this txt msg on my Tesco-sim’d mobile from ‘60000′ (NB not from ‘Tesco’)
“TescoMobile: As a thank u for being a great here’s 50 free UK std mins a month for 3mths. Reply YES by 19Mar08
T&C@tescomobile.com.
stop txt call 2702″
What does this mean? Why do I have to reply ‘yes’? If it’s a thank you why aren’t they just giving me the free mins/txts and letting me know?
Looking at their website - after some bull with sending a pin to my mobile and me then having to enter that pin- it’s clear(?) that this is a ploy to get me to swap to a new tariff, Standard Plus, and that I have to swap from my current tariff Extra to get the new mins. And of course you have to top up by a minimum of £15 a month to get the free mins which I have to do at the moment on Extra anyway.
What are the standard charges on the new tariff Standard Plus? Is the info readily available? Of course not! Currently it costs me (on the ‘Extra’ tariff) 10p/min to any non-premium UK number (ie any mobile and landline) and only 5p a txt. The normal rate is double that. It seems that if I swap to Standard plus -which is what these shenanigans are all about. I only get these extra mins for 3 mins and after that I am dumped back on to standard rate for calls? Some deal. Some thank you.
Posted by Kubla Khan on March 17th, 2008 at 2:12 pm.er, a correction to my last post. I meant to say:-
“It seems that if I swap to Standard plus -which is what these shenanigans are all about - I only get these extra mins for 3 months and that I am dumped back onto the Standard rate of 20p for calls and 10p for txts? …”
and I want to add…
I got a Tesco SIM precisely because the tariffs more transparent. Now is seems they are going the way of the rest of the pack with elaborate PAYG plans (and small print sneakiness). I already have to sacrifice using emails on my phone (impossible with a Tesco SIM in my SonyEricson K750i) and the Opera web browser (only possible with the original O2 SIM) since what Tesco can offer is restricted by carrier O2.
Posted by Kubla Khan on March 17th, 2008 at 2:28 pm.Thamks for that Kubla. Got one of those texts myself. Pretty sure it was a scam, so thought i’d just double check on line.
Peace and Love,
‘Spread the geeERRM’
Posted by geeERRM on March 19th, 2008 at 2:59 pm.