My phone has finally given up and was looking at a new one…I was on pay as you go in the old sense (you top up and use it until you run out) am I right in thinking payg is now a stealth monthly charge ie you have to buy a ‘payg pack’ which last a number of days then it automatically renews your ‘pack’ from your top up money regardless of if you use the allowance or not?

Nope, I use PAYG and last year bought a Sim only from Tesco. No restrictions, in fact I haven’t topped up for months.

Either system us available. The monthly top up Is better if you are a high user, Its similar to contract but cheaper and without the 24 month tie in. For low users then occasional top up Is still available and can be very cheap. The thing to watch is data as that can creep up the costs.

Cheers for that I must be looking in the wrong places then. So far when I have clicked to buy a phone the only payg sims they have are the ‘package’ ones.

Would prefer to just swap my old SIM (on EE) card over into a new phone but again my obviously inadequate research suggest for new phones they now all take micro or nano sims, not the original size.

You can ask EE to send you a new sim card that will fit a new phone, or port your number to GiffGaff who will send you the right size card and offer the PAYG you use – that’s exactly what I do too

Have a look at Three’s 321 plan if you’re a lowish user. You load it up and it never expires, just add funds as necessary. You can also add packages that only last a month on top as and when you need them, useful if you’ve a trip away coming up and you’re going to be using more data or minutes.

That three deal looks cheap….loads cheaper for calls/text etc is their a catch?