Early upgrade

[Fowl]

I'm looking at upgrading early, I'm doing it through a thirs party website. How would I go about doing so. Do I just do the upgrade through the third party and would the early upgrade fee just get charged to my account or do I need to clear the balance first. Also want to keep the same number

[pgn]

That depends - Guide: Upgrading Your O2 Phone explains the process, and some reputable 3rd parties, eg, affordablemobiles have a specific "Upgrade" section of their website that you can use. Note that the cost to pay-off your current contract balance will need to be paid up-front. Your MyO2 will tell you what this amount is, or text INFO to 85075 to get a free text from O2 to show the amount remaining to settle your current contract, @Fowl 

Be careful that you are not moved to a Business tariff, to which the cost of VAT (20%) has to be added - use the search bar above to search the Community for "Aerial Direct", as an example, to see how this can be a problem.

Some sites, like uSwitch, transfer your new purchase into the O2 shopping basket, and upgrade is completed on O2's own website.

Take care, and read every screen carefully at each step of the process.

Good luck!

[MI5]

@Fowl 

You may lose some benefits by not completing your upgrade with O2.

Refresh and Volt benefits are not available through 3rd party resellers.

Volt Megaguide 

Guide: How does O2 Refresh work? 

[pgn]

Volt is available to you even if you purchase through a Reseller, @MI5 - so long as it is a contract, using O2's billing system, you are covered - so long as both VM and O2 addresses match. The likes of Preferred Partners are a different matter - the Aerial Directs etc move you off O2's billing system to their own bespoke billing system - and not sure if Business Contracts are eligible for Volt anyway.

Yes, Refresh benefits only apply to contracts purchased directly from O2 (online or in-store).

Also purchase your new contract from anyone other than O2 and your annual inflation-linked RPI price increase is on the entire bundle value (ie both handset cost and tariff cost), whereas with Refresh the handset component is immune to the RPI increase in March every year.

That said, I read something about Telecoms providers being told to unlink RPI increase from the annual percentage inflation figure recently, which my change the amount your phone/contract rises by each April when the vendors get their heads and processes around it): https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/bills-and-charges/ofcom-bans-mid-contract-price-rises-...

Just to keep the discussion between the rails on Volt  👍