O2 UK Set to Remove Higher Discount Rates from Family Plan

Mobile operator O2 (Telefonica UK) looks set the introduce some changes to their popular ‘Family Plan‘ discounts from 10th September 2020, which will cut the top 30% and 40% reduction rates and instead introduce a flat 20% discount for every eligible Pay Monthly connection you add.

At present new customers on eligible tariffs are given 28 days to decide whether or not to adopt the Family Plan, which essentially applies a discount for every additional O2 Pay Monthly mobile connection you add (the original plan doesn’t get any discount, only additional ones).

The plan essentially encourages everybody in the same house (address) to use O2 and means that the first additional plan gets a 10% discount, the second a 20% discount, the third a 30% discount and the fourth a 40% discount. You can add up to 20 connections but the discount never goes higher than 40%, which still delivers quite a significant saving for a big family.

However, all of this is about to change, as per this statement on O2’s website: “Our Family Plan discount is changing. From 10 September you’ll get 20% off the Airtime Plan of every eligible Pay Monthly connection you add to your Family Plan. You can still add up to 20 connections. If you currently have a Family Plan discount, this won’t change until you upgrade.”

The change should benefit smaller families as the first discount will now be 20% instead of 10%, although for larger families the new approach is likely to be a lot less attractive. Admittedly it’s not the first time that O2 has watered down their Family Plan and back in 2017/18 we recall the top reduction being 50%.

Admittedly over the years we’ve seen quite a few people struggle to get these discounts applied to their plans, often even after being promised that it would be, but most people manage to avoid such difficulties. However, the forthcoming change may present a problem for recent O2 customers who have yet to apply for the Family Plan. As one reader put it, “O2 couldn’t clarify whether I would get 10% discount for the second line, or if I waited until after the 10th (within my 28 day claim period), that I could claim for the 20% discount?”

We put this question to O2 and they merely confirmed that “customers who already have a discount will continue with the same one until they upgrade.”