When you call, don’t tell them you live in France as their Ts&Cs dictate that (I paraphrase) you need to be based in the UK to be a GiffGaff subscriber.
Thanks Brian. Surely it’s ok to say we are here on holiday though?
I’m surprised about that since their website does permit us to put in billing and residency addresses for France.
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They’ll post to other countries so you can use your phone ‘as soon as you arrive in the UK’. When I last read their full Ts&Cs a couple of months ago, UK residency was a requirement…
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Networks can see where you are, and for how long. So might need a bit of tiptoeing
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Hi Sue, just seen your latest query, yes on PAYG it’s 10p a text - 1p would be a very good price and i’ve never seen that. If a system or comms error they usually give you some top up credit to compensate.
Presume you’re sorted now after a week?
Thanks for asking Larkswood. In fact I am still confused
Which is why I don’t understand why I had this text message from them on 5th September:
"Hello your 2 weeks of roaming like at home is now up. Roaming in the EU and selected destinations will now be charged from your balance at 3.2p/min, 1p/text and 10p/MB
I asked on the community and all they did was confirm it was 10p. Nobody explained the text I received from giffgaff.
Ah,
This is when you have a bundle. e.g. a 1000 minutes, texts and data etc for say £5 month
You are allowed a certain period of roaming in France and when that is up, if you send a text using your bundle allowance they will charge an extra1p - so send 100 texts from your bundle outside of the roaming period and you will pay £1 in addition to your bundle. Same for calls etc. These are extra charges for using in France on top of your monthly allowance.
As you are not using a bundle you simply pay the PAYG rate of 10p / text etc. Receiving calls and texts remain free.
Roaming is when you use the SIM abroad - as you are. Following Brexit I think most telco’s now charge you extra after a period - before they wouldn’t.
Hope that helps?
You’ll probably get a £1 eventually - you get points for participating in the community!
And I think there’s still a £5 offer for both when one person recommends giffgaff to / recruits another - as you did. Hopefully you availed yourself of that.
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Thanks very much for clarifying this Larkswood. Didn’t know about the £5 - shame!
From now onwards I’m hoping that the SIM will basically be there for receiving calls from Barclaycard and the like.
Look at 1p mobile which, as its name suggests, is 1p minute, 1p a text and 1p mB. It requires a £10 top up which lasts for 4 months or until all credit is used. It’s a rolling contract with auto top up if required.
It allows roaming which “shouldn’t exceed UK use” but took four months to catch up with my daughter’s use in France when it then imposed a £1 per day surcharge. A new sim has been ordered. 
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Sorry to hijack this old post, but having been a member of this group for probably 8+ years, I cannot figure out how to create a new post myself. It seems I have only ever replied to other member’s posts!
I have a Bouygues double SIM for my main French number and a UK O2 SIM for my English phone. It seems that everything from HMRC to banking, whatsapp and actual phone apps are connected to the English number, plus I use it when visiting England. O2 are forcing us onto a new tariff in Jan, which will represent a 23% price hike.
What is the current advice on cheap UK SIM only deals please. I just want a SIM I can top up when needed, not the pay monthly one we have now. I also want to be able to port our existing numbers to it . Thanks
Hi Carl.
I’ve kept a UK number for the same reason as you. I switched from Vodafone (I used to work for them many years ago so had a great staff discount which only relatively recently get revoked) to GiffGaff. They were happy to send me the new SIM card to my French address.
I too wanted to retain my old number so, once I’d received the new SIM card here in France, I did a request to Vodafone for a PAC and gave that to GiffGaff so they could port my old number to my new SIM card.
They do offer “bundles” but for us immigrants it’s not worth it. I am a PAYG user and I chucked about £10 worth of credit on there at the beginning. Every 2 or 3 months I send a text from my GiffGaff number to my Sosh number. It costs me a few pennies but it keeps the UK number active.
It’s been a couple of years now and I really can’t fault GiffGaff at all.
I am UK-based and use Lebara - they run on the Vodafone network in the UK which has the best coverage where I live. Lebara is of course cheaper!
There is a “French Lebara” too I believe.
Like @Gareth I kept my old Vodafone number - the switchover was easy. Mine is a pay monthly but if you want PayG I think you can just order a SIM on Amazon and off you go.
https://www.lebara.co.uk/en/help/new-members/keep-your-old-number.html
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That had been my experience, but if you read the Ts&Cs thoroughly, the phone must be used predominantly in the UK, and if it has not been used in the UK in the previous 63 days, they reserve the right to terminate all roaming services.
They did this to me a couple of months ago and the only way I can get it reinstated is to visit the UK. So at the moment, I’m unable to make or receive phone calls, texts or data on my UK number. To make matters worse, if the number is not used for 6 months, GiffGaff cancel the contract.
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Hi Gareth, thanks for the response. Excuse my ignorance but looking at giffgaff, I can only see various packages starting at £6 per month for a monthly contract of 1 Gb with unlimited calls and texts. How would you “ load” such a SIM please? Also, it says calls and texts are included but then lists prices for all mobile and landline calls- how can they be included if they are 25p per minute? By my calculation the £6 contract only gives you 24 minutes of call time!
Ah, interesting - and annoying for you, @_Brian, I imagine.
I guess the fact I’ve popped back to Blighty at least once approximately every 6 months or so means I’ve not fallen foul of this… yet. But good to know. Hope you can get it sorted soon. Or did you already switch to another provider?
I can’t switch to another uk provider unless I’m in the UK, so it looks as if another link to the UK will be severed!
I’m not too fussed as I haven’t had to use the uk phone number for verification purposes (its main use in recent times) for a couple of years now - it’s all app and email based these days
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I have never had a pay as you go phone but seem to remember they could be topped up as and when needed. Looking at the various websites for giffgaf, smarty mobile, lebara etc, they only seem to mention pay monthly SIM only contracts, not Pay as you go- am I missing something? My ideal would be to not be forking out £20 per month for 2 UK phones that are only used about 10 times per year
Oh yes, you’re right. It looks as though they’ve removed the option to just top up a fixed amount and now force you to have a ‘pay monthly’ thing. Apologies, I hadn’t realised they’ve done that.
I’ll try logging in to my account to see if there’s any link to the PAYG package from my logged in account, but otherwise it might seem that GiffGaff is not such a good deal any more.
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For very light use seems a reasonable deal.
BUT 1p a megabyte is quite expensive so anything other than the most limited use of the internet is likely to get to the point where the effective monthly rental of £2.50, plus data fees (a mere 250Mb, which is absolutely tiny by today’s standards will cost anothr £2.50) means you can probably find a better deal overall.
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Someone needing texts/calls only can switch off data in the phone settings. A 2G non-smart phone won’t use data. A data top up can be added as required to 1p payg.
Smarty payg sims with unlimited calls and texts with some data start at £5 for 30 day rolling contract and have a generous roaming allowance.
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