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giffgaff phone service

Posted by on

We had a good experience with giffgaff phone service in England. We were able to get our UK phone number before we left home and it was cheap.

– We have an unlocked GSM smartphone.

– We requested a free giffgaff SIM via the web at http://giffgaffgsimabroad.wufoo.com/forms/get-a-free-giffgaff-sim-abroad/

– After the SIM card arrived, I created a giffgaff account online. (I had to give them a UK street address. I used the address of where we would be staying. )

– We swapped out the SIM card and followed the instructions to activate the phone. (Then we put the U.S. SIM back in the phone.)

– I purchased a goodybag £12, which gave us 250 UK minutes, unlimited UK texts and unlimited Internet for one month. I was able to use my U.S. credit card to purchase the goodybag online.

When we arrived in the UK, we put the giffgaff SIM card in our phone and we were good to go. We liked being able to give people our phone number before we left home. For £12 we had unlimited internet, which enabled us to use Google Maps, etc. When I activated the account, we received a £5 credit. We were able to make a few phone calls home at the rate of 8p per minute.

Posted by
1075 posts

Yes, I've been with them for about 2 years and have found them a lot better than the larger service providers.

Posted by
11 posts

Thanks so much for sharing this, it really helped! may I ask what type of phone you used? Of if you have a suggestion on which phone I should aquire?

Posted by
1359 posts

Any unlocked quadband gsm phone will work. Its the 900/1800 band that covers western europe.
If you move up to a smartphone,additonally check it it is 3g capable, some on ebay say " internet access" but that might be a much slower 2g connection

Posted by
7 posts

I recently bought a SIM-free iPhone 6 plus from Apple and plan on using it during my trip to London this month. It does cost quite a bit up front, but I have peace of mind knowing that the phone's "unlocked" through Apple not by some third-party.

I also requested for a giffgaff SIM and tested it out on my SIM-free iPhone. It works fine because I received a text from giffgaff and was able to set-up an account online on the giffgaff website. Unfortunately, I could not purchase any of the goodybags/top-ups because my credit card was declining the purchase. I got in touch my with credit card company and they tried to remove the blocks, but it never worked. So what I will have to do is purchase a top-up voucher when I get to London and activate the SIM then. No big deal.

But I hope it works out for you...

Posted by
1359 posts

Only about 1 in 10 times top up they the have heard of giiffgaff so as above buy an O2 voucher which everyone sells

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