Best Prepaid Mobile Plans For Over 55’s
By Mike Wheeler
By Mike Wheeler
I remember a few years ago trying to persuade my Baby Boomer parents to get a mobile phone. It was an uphill battle. They were of the age whereby they had a landline, had the Internet hooked up, bought an LCD TV, and that was about as far as they were prepared to go in the technology stakes. Eventually, they bought a Nokia 3360 handset each for emergencies.
However, time has moved on, and even their generation feel the need to have a mobile phone (as opposed to just wanting one), and with that comes the addition of another expense being added to their bottom line.
With cost in mind, we decided to put together what we consider to be the best current plans available for people who are starting to hit their twilight years; they want a mobile handset, but aren’t too fussed about all the bells and whistles, and most importantly, won’t cost them the earth.
Telstra Pre-paid Simplicity $30 Plan
Telstra has always had innumerable plans, but we think this one will suit many seniors as it allows a full 60 days before you need to recharge. It gives you $30 worth of credit, which isn’t too bad. It will cost you $0.15 cents a minute for calls and $0.12 cents a minute for texts. The only down side is that you are charged $0.10 cent per MB of data used, which may seem cheap, but you’ll be surprised how quick you can go through $30 worth.
Optus Crew Cap $40 Plan
Similar to the Telstra plan in that it gives you $60 worth of credit. It may cost you $10 more, but you get $300 worth of credit including $150 Optus-to-Optus calls, and $40 Mycredit and $110 Mybonus value. Both Mycredit and Mybonus monies can be used for standard national calls, texts and internet browsing. However, Mycredit includes international roaming, voicemail, video calls plus other features. The only extra that Mybonus can be used for is international calls. On paper it looks much better than Telstra but the call and text rates are much higher – $0.29 for texts and $0.89 for calls. Unused credit will roll over if you recharge before expiry date. Optus also has a $40 plan that lasts 186 days, but that give you only $200 worth of value.
Amaysim Unlimited $39.90
In the instance of Amaysim, it’s a case of, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. In our Best Summer Prepaid Plans we spruiked the company’s $39.90 Unlimited Plan, and it happens to get the tick for the over 55’s, too. You get unlimited standard calls to mobiles, landlines, voicemail and 1300 and 1800 numbers, unlimited standard SMS and access to social media; no flag fall, and a huge 4GB of data. The plan lasts 30 days or, like all the plans mentioned, until you run out of credit.
Virgin Mobiln $19
Like most of its prepaid plans, Virgin Mobile will increase the amount of credit you get for the same amount of money, every time you recharge (up to four times). In this case, we’d go for its $19 plan – the first time with this plan you get $100 of credit. That bounces up to $250 by the fourth recharge. Part of the deal is unlimited calls and texts to other Virgin phones and unused credit is rolled over to the next month. It is pretty expensive compared to some with each call costing $0.40 per connection and $0.90 per minute or part thereof. Texts are 35 cents each.
Vodafone Prepad Cap Plan $30
It was a toss-up between Vodafone’s Prepaid Cap plan or Flexi cap, and after a lot of toing and froing we went with the Prepaid Cap plan because it gives you $450 of credit. While he Flexi Plan gives you $150 Flexi credit and $350 Vodafone-to-Vodafone credit, ($500 all up), we believe that most of the older generation would like their plan to be able to include more credit to call mobile phones on other carriers. It also includes up to 500MB of data. You have to top up after 28 days, and it costs $.090 a minute for calls and $0.35 per text. They also charge $0.05 per text delivery.
TPG Unlimited $17.99
TPG’s Unlimited plan costs $17.99 includes $550 of credit, 1.5Gb of data, unlimited calls to TPG mobiles and TPG home plans, but it costs $0.90 per call with a flag fall of $0.35. For the first month you have to pay $20 for the SIM card and $20 for deposit. Also be aware that when you sign up with TPG that you read the Important Things You Need to Know on their website, as there are exceptions, the most important being that they will charge you for extra data (as opposed to coming out of your $550) – but there too many others to list here. However, overall, once it is set up, it is a worthwhile plan.
