Orange Pay-As-You-Go in the US?

I picked up a Pay-As-You-Go phone through Orange from carphone warehouse for £9.99 and a top-up card for £10.  The nice thing we discovered is Orange is running a promotion for their PAYG where if you top up with £10 you can get 200 free text messages!  I *still* have £8 something on the card because all I really needed it for was to text.

Anyway.  Tim and I got this brilliant idea that when I go home we can keep my Orange account active by sending texts to each other on it so I could keep the same mobile number when I come back/move....except that my cheap phone is only dual band.

So..does anyone know if I can buy a cheap tri-band off ebay when I get home and just pop the SIM in for Orange and have it work? Alternately, does anyone know how long credit lasts with Orange or if I could reactivate the same SIM/number when I return to the UK? 

My other option is going back and picking up the £30 tri-band phone. I like it, but so far I haven't been able to justify buying it and Tim seems to think that would be silly.

Not sure about putting the SIM in a different phone - some phones are locked and won't work with other SIM cards (e.g. I can put my Orange SIM card in my LG Chocolate phone (on T-Mobile) and it works, but I can't put my T-Mobile SIM into my Samsung (on Orange) and get it to work!).

However, if you are on Orange PAYG, I don't think the account will expire if you don't use it while in the US (unless they've changed the terms and conditions recently). I took my Orange phone with me to New Mexico when I was on study abroad for a year - I didn't use the phone for 10 months (it was switched of for almost the entire year) and it still worked fine when I returned to the UK - it even had all my credit still left on it !

It's a great idea to use your texts if you want to, although I would check on the policy for using your UK phone abroad - text messages are much more expensive if you are texting from abroad and you may find that your 200 free texts don't include international usage and you will have to pay extra for any texts sent from outside the UK (usually 40p to send and 40p to receive a text when in the US).

I think I might pop into the actual Orange store and ask about it, since the people at carphone warehouse had no clue when I asked them.

Yeah, I figured we'd have to pay for the messages, but we'd only message often enough to keep it active if it needed to be used once every 30 days or whatever to stay active...but if you had yours off for 10 months then I don't think I'll have a problem with it! 

I think I might pop into the actual Orange store and ask about it, since the people at carphone warehouse had no clue when I asked them.

Yeah, I figured we'd have to pay for the messages, but we'd only message often enough to keep it active if it needed to be used once every 30 days or whatever to stay active...but if you had yours off for 10 months then I don't think I'll have a problem with it! 

I was very surprised when I got to the US and found that a) I had to top up my minutes every 90 days to keep the number and b) I had to pay to both make and receive calls and texts. I'd had mobile phones in the UK for 4 years before I went to New Mexico and had never heard of phone companies having these stipulations before !

Different UK companies will probably have different terms for keeping a phone active - Orange was fine... I still kept my account active (I've had the same phone number with Orange from 2001 to 2008, although my mum now has that phone and uses it as hers), but I had a text message from T-Mobile on my phone when I moved back to the UK in August saying that my account would be cancelled if I didn't use the phone for more than 6 months (it had been almost 6 months since I'd used it).

you shouldn't have to top up to keep it active- at least I didn't with Virgin Mobile when I went back to the States after study abroad. When I returned to the UK, the SIM still worked fine after 18 months of not using it.

Terms & Conditions PayG is listed towards the bottom.  Section 3 deals with Top Ups, however it states that the validity of your credit is whatever is current at the time of taking out your service with them, so you may want to check on how long that is with the shop or by phoning them dialing 450 from your handset (one credit of 25p to call).  However, you can also email them your questions using the Contact Us section, go to email and answer their qs to direct you where you need to go.  

Orange prices for PayG customers from the USA lists texts at 45p to send and free to receive.

Here's a link to the PayG Price Guide, I didn't see a validity period listed, but then again I really didn't look very hard.

Hope that helps a bit.  

you shouldn't have to top up to keep it active- at least I didn't with Virgin Mobile when I went back to the States after study abroad. When I returned to the UK, the SIM still worked fine after 18 months of not using it.

Shouldn't have to, no but I got an Orange SIM last year or the year before and they told me I had to top up at least every 6 months to keep it active, but it still seemed to work last time I had it in my phone about a year ago, without ever topping it up (aside from initial purchase).  I'll try and dig it out and give it a whirl to see if its still valid.

Terms & Conditions PayG is listed towards the bottom.  Section 3 deals with Top Ups, however it states that the validity of your credit is whatever is current at the time of taking out your service with them, so you may want to check on how long that is with the shop or by phoning them dialing 450 from your handset (one credit of 25p to call).  However, you can also email them your questions using the Contact Us section, go to email and answer their qs to direct you where you need to go.  

Orange prices for PayG customers from the USA lists texts at 45p to send and free to receive.

Here's a link to the PayG Price Guide, I didn't see a validity period listed, but then again I really didn't look very hard.

Hope that helps a bit.  

Hmm, I got page not found on the first link. 

I was very surprised when I got to the US and found that a) I had to top up my minutes every 90 days to keep the number and b) I had to pay to both make and receive calls and texts. I'd had mobile phones in the UK for 4 years before I went to New Mexico and had never heard of phone companies having these stipulations before !

In the US, I have a contract for my phone, so I don't even know how PAYG works there!

Shouldn't have to, no but I got an Orange SIM last year or the year before and they told me I had to top up at least every 6 months to keep it active, but it still seemed to work last time I had it in my phone about a year ago, without ever topping it up (aside from initial purchase).  I'll try and dig it out and give it a whirl to see if its still valid.

Hmm.  Well, I suppose the worse case scenario is I leave it with Tim to top up/use and then have him mail it to me before I visit again. 

I went to the Orange store yesterday, and even if I pick up a tri-band to use it in the US for texting, you have to make a *call* every 6 months to keep it active.

My Orange pay-as-you-go UK phone number has just disappeared into the ether after about 15 months of non-use. I think they said they had the "right" to disconnect after a year. No idea what happened to the small amount of credit I had on it, but I will reinstate the phone on my next trip to the UK and find out.

I had to pay to both make and receive calls and texts. I'd had mobile phones in the UK for 4 years before I went to New Mexico and had never heard of phone companies having these stipulations before !

Remember that it's standard in the U.S. to pay for incoming calls (or have them deducted from inclusive minutes), since the caller pays only the same amount he would pay to call a regular landline number in the location your phone is based, not a higher mobile rate as in the U.K.

Why don't you leave your bf 20 quid or so and have him do a 5 pound top-up and maybe make a single phone call on it every couple of months or so?

We were going to leave it with him, but the problem comes up with me then not having it to call him and let him know when I land/am on the train/etc. 

We've got it sorted, since it needs to be used every 6 mos, and I'll be back within 6 mos.  I just can't use it from the US unless I pop it into a tri-band phone.