Rollover credit: who still has it and how does it work?
Summary: You may pay for the same mobile phone plan each month, but your usage will surely vary. Some of the telcos offer to move unused credit from one month to the next, but its a feature we se less and...
In the majority of cases, we talk about mobile phone plans in months. You pay 'X amount' and the telco gives you 'Y value' for a 30-day period. But in some circumstances your plan's inclusions last longer than just one month and roll over into the next month.
Rollover credit used to be more common on mobile plans, but in the days of 'unlimited' plans and heavy data inclusions, many telcos have reverted to a fixed expiry periods for unused plan inclusions. However, there are still a few exceptions. Rollover credit is most useful when you have varying usage patterns between months. You can store your under-usage of a plan amount in one month and have that provide you with extra usage the following month.
|
Rollover included in plans
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Post-Paid phone plans
|
Yes
All Phone and SIM plans
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Pre-Paid phone plans
|
Yes Cap, Long Expiry, Simplicity
|
YesAll Pre-Paid
|
No
|
No
|
Yes Flexi Plan
|
|
Post-Paid mobile broadband plans
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Pre-Paid mobile broadband plans
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
N
|
Virgin Post-Paid Rollover
Virgin Mobile is one of the last bastions of rollover credit, and is the only major telco still offering to rollover unused credit in post-paid plans, as well as many of its Pre-Paid phone and internet plans.
Each month, your Virgin Mobile customer dashboard shows you the amount of included value that you have used in a month and the amount of the previous months rollover amount available to you.
Importantly, this applies to data on its post-paid plans -- this includes Phone Plans and SIM Only Plans. As with the other rollover features listed in the table above, Virgin will roll over unused Calls, SMS/MMS credit and data into the next month, for use after you've gotten through your regular inclusions in that following month.
A few common T&Cs;
As you can see above, several of the telcos include a rollover credit feature in one or more of their products, and while each of these plans have their own pros and cons, there are a few elements which are common to all of them.
- Rollover credit is only valid for one extra month, so you can't bank up a huge amount over time.
- It is always used AFTER you have expended all of the new credit for the month.
- If you use prepaid, you have to recharge (or top up) before the credit expiry date to activate the rollover feature -- usually 24 hours before.
- Where a telco has several similar products, like several pre-paid offers, you have to recharge with the same offer from month to month to rollover old credit. If you choose a new plan or offer, the old credit expires.