Hi
I have been with Optus many years. I am retired and have minimal mobile phone usage (I have 93% download allowance left with 16 days remaining of 3G) and have been paying $25 per month.
I received an email yesterday informing me that from August the plan will be replaced by a $50 per month one with much more download etc etc and as an introduction I will only pay $34 per month.
I went in-store and they cannot help. I fact they told me that they have had a lot of customers coming in in my position and they advised me to look around and ‘port’ my phone number.
I contacted Optus via the app and the first customer rep simply repeated the new plan details. I told them that this was disgraceful and I will leave Optus and inform the ombudsman and Choice, when they escalated to the floor manager and then to customer resolution for a solution.
They have now told me they will contact me within the next 48 hrs with a solution .
Mobile phone plans these days are all about the amount of data used per month, and the connection type, 4G or 5G.
The voice and SMS/MMS come essentially free as an add-on for Australian calls. After all, those are digitized and use very little bandwidth.
But it appears that you are not a user who would be using much data every day, so look around for a mobile plan that has a low monthly charge that will represent a low data usage allowance. But that data would still be in the Gigabytes per month if needed.
I have a legacy Optus PAYG prepaid that costs me typically $30 every three months on average between recharges, but those plans are pretty much dead now. Certainly no longer available with Optus. More the pity because it is great for occasional use and six month expiry and rollover on recharge. I expect one day the Email will come announcing the demise of my plan.
But I reckon Optus, if you want to stay with them, would have cheaper plans than the $50 a month one they are moving you to. I know they do with their Flex plans.
But as mentioned by a previous poster, MVNO plans from lots of retailers, and others like Internode/iinet/Vodafone/TPG (all related) will beat the pants off anything available for personal low usage users from the likes of Telstra or Optus.
We relied on Optus mobile for nearly 10 years. They were initially more competitive than Telstra, and in our location a more reliable signal than Telstra. We left Optus and added mobile through Aussie Broadband our NBN provider. It more than halved our cost and uses the Optus network.
While @Scouse might not need this much data this Aldimobile (Telstra wholesale network) annual prepaid plan equates to $13.25 a month. Almost half what was being paid to Optus. They don’t always offer things online like this so no need to be near an Aldi store.
Availability
Online
This Super Pack is available from 14 June 2023 to 27 June 2023.
(I have the $99 365 day Value Pack w/15GB of data that I do not use much of, not currently available for new purchases but worth watching for in your Aldi ads - if you are near an Aldi - usually offered 2 or 3 times a year for a few weeks each time.).
Thank you all for the invaluable advice.
I have just received a call from Optus customer support and they ended up offering me a $25 discount on the forthcoming ($50) charge to return it to $25.
However, thanks to your advice I will move to Aldimobile and save heaps!!!
We use Amaysim for a NFP Charity we volunteer for, very low call rates and small data requirements but a lot cheaper than you were talking about. Haven’t checked the Aldi plans however. Amaysim is an Optus reseller. might be worth a look
Before you go, check out the Optus 365 day deals. 200G for $220 or 100G for $150 may be a cheaper option. Zero cost for calls or texts within Australia.
Optus has never been competitive. I reecntly changed from Vodafone to Cicles mobile as I am also a minimal user. I found Aldi charges hidden & been recharging too frequently.
Try Amaysim ( amaysim.com.au ) - I pay $10 for 28 days with 4Gb data (which is accrued so when I don’t use it all, it accrues). I believe Amaysim use the Optus network.
I will be watching to see how you go as I need a new plan and find Optus and Telstra plans expensive with more bells and whistles for my needs for most of the year. The problem with the other options from cheaper companies like Kogan which I have tried and others are possibly similar, work fine in major centres, but it’s when you head out in the bush you lose data and comms except for the emergency number. Best do an online search for the range map for any companies you are interested in if that matters to you. Look forward to seeing how you go, if you are happy to still share.
We’ve had our services with Aussie Broad Band - Optus network for 12 months. Has worked in all the places we previously had Optus coverage. In the bush rural NSW, Vic and QLD. I also have a service with Telstra for when nothing else works. I’ve not needed to use it, although there are road routes where it fills in the gaps.
I keep the amaysim (Optus network) service for when there are gaps in Telstra coverage! And I have experienced some in unexpected places not too far from Canberra! Both are highly variable from minute to minute around my home. VoWiFi is huge when I am in range.
If you have installed the Aldi Mobile App (free from app store) then you can purchase the super packs at any time from within the app. No need to wait for them to come on sale. This may be conditional on your having originally installed a super pack bought from the Aldi shop.
I purchased the $99 super pack a couple of years ago when they were on sale at the shop and have recharged from within the Aldi Mobile App ever since.
More recently instead of recharging with the $99 super pack again, I opted to recharge with the $159 super pack which is 365 days and 132 GB data, all done from within the Aldi Mobile App. No need to wait for them to come on sale at the shop.
It’s also worth noting that if you recharge with the same or greater value super pack, all your unused data rolls over provided you recharge before the expiry date.
I tested this out when I migrated from the $99 super pack to the $159 super pack. All of my accumulated data from 2 or 3 years on the $99 super pack was rolled over into the $159 super pack.
The 132gb data allowance is not served up in monthly allotments - it lasts for the whole 365 days.
For clarity they have differing names, eg it is a $99 Value Pack but a $159 Super Pack. The norm is that the first time you have to buy it at an Aldi but from then on you can
autorecharge (which I do)
manually recharge from the app
manually recharge from the web
In each case the data is for 365 days and unused data rolls over as you wrote.
If you want to stick with a plan of that nature (i.e. fixed amount per month, rather than a prepaid & recharge & expire plan) then TPG $20 per month (for 12 GB) may suit - and currently $10 per month for the first 6 months.
12 GB is even more more than you need but you might as well pay $20 per month rather than paying $25 per month.
