Coming to the end of my 1st mobile contract, no doubt along with a number of others who bought a certain phone on 18 contract, anyone know what I can expect from O2 upgrade/retention wise?

As there’s bugger all info on the net, and I want to know if I should be looking to swap to a new provider for a better deal or stay with 02.
Would like the newer version of my phone, but don’t particularly see why I should pay for that upgrade (I assume I would have to).

Any experiences?

Been with 02 for 7 years never had to pay for an upgrade, always got the latest handset. I think you might have to pay for an iPhone4 though as demand is so high. Depending on what phone you have got now you could eBay it to reover some/all of the cost of an upgrade.

i came to the end of my 18mth contract with o2 and they had good offers on blackberries. However I just decided to go for a rolling contract that cost me £10 a month cheaper. I kept my own handset and I’m not tied into them.

If you let your contract expire then you will be in a better position to get the phone and contract you want. Do not pay for the phone. (iPhone will be an exception)
Vodafone tried to do that on my last upgrade (I was out of contract), I said I’d leave them and it didn’t take them long to agree to a contract that I wanted. I was prepared to leave them though in case they called my bluff.

If they don’t offer you a good deal when speaking to the upgrades people say you can get a better deal else where (do your homework) and ask to speak to the retentions department. They are the only people that can give you the really good deals and its surprising how far they’ll go to keep you on O2.

After 18months with o2 on an iphone contract and a year before that on SIM only I wanted to go sim only on the iphone. Orange have a better deal on for £20 and o2 weren’t in the slightest interested in matching it… they offered me my PAC code without even me asking for it. This is after going through stuff with the normal sales folks and then speaking to customer retention!!

I was surprised to say the least.

Ring O2 and see what they’ll offer you; anything else here is speculation.

Alternatively, if there’s nothing you want, swap to a ‘SIM only’ tariff and same yourself some money.

try phones 4 u they are giving silly money for old phones at the moment £80 for my N95

If it’s an iPhone you want you’ll get nothing at all from them on a new one but you may get some sort of a deal on a ‘reboxed’ one as I did.

I’m on O2 through the carphone warehouse, have been for about 7 or 8 years. I’d got them down to £5 a month by asking for my pac code every time my contract was up. Last time they put it up to £15 and when I asked for my pac code they just gave it to me, no offers this time.