How do I add an extra to my Orange SIM

[Grayfield]

I still have an Orange Pay as you Go card with about £10 of credit that I use occasionally (I am usually resident abroad and use it when I visit the UK.) 

The SIM is still active and can be called and I can call others.

The online services have been switched off and as I am about to visit the UK for a few days, I wanted to activate 100 minutes for 7 days for £3. I tried sending a text to 6620 with "100 MINS WEEK",  but the text was rejected. I then tried sending it to 150 and 450 and just got a general help message. 

It looks like I cannot add any extras this way any more, which basically makes this SIM useless beyond just using up the £10 at normal call rates.
Is there still any way of activating extras on an old orange card?

I tried creating a new EE account, but my phone number is not recognised.

What can I do? My flight is on Thursday.

[XRaySpeX]

"100 MINS WEEK" is an EE PAYG add-on not Orange. As are texts to 150 & 450. Orange add-on codes (to 6620) can be found on p 12 of Orange Pay as you go price guide . The nearest to what you want is texting MINS 7.5 to 6620 for 100 mins over 1 month for £7.50 or MINS 1 to 6620 for 25 mins over 1 day for £1.

MyEE a/c are no longer open to Orange nos. since Dec.

[Grayfield]

Thanks, I just tried to send MINS 7.5 to 6620 and got a "Message not sent" error - all text messages to 6620 are being rejected. 

[Christopher_G]

Hi @Grayfield

Welcome to the community. 🙂

My best advice would be to top up when you arrive in the UK.

Have you thought about changing your Orange pay as you go SIM for an EE one?

That way you will get all of the latest pay as you go offers and rewards. You will also have access to an online account again to make it easier to manage.

Find out more information about changing your SIM from Orange to EE >

Chris

[Grayfield]

In the end, I just gave up and ported the number to Giff Gaff as I had bought one of their SIMs the last time I was in the UK.

In fact, I had three Orange SIMs and despite using them at the same time on each UK trip, Orange had deactivated two of them without warning and I only had one left - which I have now moved to Giff Gaff. 

I did look at the EE Pay As you Go prices and they are simply not competetive. I was rather shocked, in today's Smartphone and tablet world, that for £10, EE offers ONLY 10MB of data along with Unlimited Texts and 250 minutes. Strangly, you get 150MB data, 250 Texts and 50 minutes for £5 - that is 15x more data than for £10!!!!

I use up 10MB of data just by sending two emails. I just do not understand why you think 10MB data is attractive to anyone.

In comparison GiffGaff offers me 100MB data, 150 mins and 500 texts for £5 and 3GB data and unlimited minutes and texts for £10. 

The difference between just 10MB and 3GB is staggering. 

On Orange, I was granted 1GB of data and 400 texts just for topping up by £10 (which I could then use for extras or calls). The allowances on EE seem to have been cut drastically.

All the same, I would consider moving my other two Orange cards to EE, if only to recover the numbers and save the credit on them, which has been stolen by just closing the accounts without warning and refusing to let me reactivate the cards or refund the balance.

But there is also the hope that the customer support guy I was talking to was misinformed. Is there a chance of reactivating my other two Orange accounts by moving them to EE Pay as you Go?

[XRaySpeX]

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@Grayfield wrote:

for £10, EE offers ONLY 10MB of data along with Unlimited Texts and 250 minutes. Strangly, you get 150MB data, 250 Texts and 50 minutes for £5 - that is 15x more data than for £10!!!!

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It does what it says on the tin ! The former is a Talk & Text pack & gives loads of texts & calls but only a smidgen of data. The latter is for Everything & naturally gives more data at the expense of texts & calls.

If it's data you're after you can get from EE a £10 Data pack with 2GB, unlimited texts & 100 mins. For the full range of EE PAYG packs see Pay as you go packs,  .

[Grayfield]

I see you deleted my previous post, probably because I mentioned another provider that I ported my Orange SIM to.

So I will stick to just Orange and EE and say that I still do not find even the better offers on the other page you mentioned, that competetive, although 2GB is a LOT better than 10MB.

As an Ex-pat living in Germany, I had three Orange SIM cards and although I used them all together on each UK trip, 2 were inactivated without warning and only one was left and I could not even activate extras on that as texts to 6620 are now blocked. 

Is there any possibility of moving my two deactivated Orange accounts to EE and thereby recoup the unused credit and regain use of the numbers?

[XRaySpeX]

If they've been deactived cuz they been unused for over 9 months you lost them completely. You can always take out new EE PAYG SIMs.

I deleted nothing. In fact I was replying to your post whilst it disappeared.

[Grayfield]

Well somebody deleted the post.

I last used two of those SIMs in November 2017, so hardly 9 months ago.

Well after all this, we are now off to the "GGs" 🙂

[XRaySpeX]

You could try to Move to EE pay as you go on their nos.

[MichaelL]

Hi Greyfield,

No posts were deleted. Yours was caught by the quarantine which automatically flags certain posts by new users if they contain links. It's a spam prevention system. I've had a chance to review your post and I've confirmed it's legit. It should be appearing for you again now.

Cheers,

Michael

[XRaySpeX]

@MichaelL: Thanks. I thought it strange for it to be deleted just cuz it mentioned another provider.

[Grayfield]

"You could try to Move to EE pay as you go on their nos."

I just tried, but the process requires them sending a PIN to the old number and as that SIM has been deactivated, it cannot receive the number.

If anyone from EE wants to look into this for me, the number was [xxx]. I was using that number sporadically for years.

[mod edit: please do not post personal information such as phone numbers on the public board. Thanks!]

[Lee_H]

Hi @Grayfield and welcome to the community.

We will need customer services to look into this as here in the community we do not have any account access.

Many thanks,

Lee