Vodafone to hike bills by 2.5% paying up to £23.40 extra from next month
VODAFONE is hiking bills for millions of mobile customers by 2.5 per cent and some will pay up to £23.40 a year more.
The price increase takes place from your April bill for pay monthly and Sim-only contracts taken out on or after May 5, 2016, and for mobile broadband contracts taken out on or after September 28, 2016.
If you’re on a contract purchased before May 5, 2016 and you haven't upgraded then you're covered by Vodafone's "Fixed Price Promise", so you won’t see prices rise.
Pay-as-you-go users are also unaffected.
The 2.5 per cent rise is in line with February's retail prices index (RPI) measure of inflation as published in March.
It means someone paying £20 a month, which Vodafone says is its most popular price plan, will see bills rise by 50p a month or £6 a year from April.
But for someone paying for one of Vodafone's priciest contracts - take the £78 a month Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max for example - and you face an extra £1.95 a month or £23.40 a year.
How to avoid the mobile hike
HERE'S what action you can take to try to avoid mobile price rises:
If you're in contract - haggle your price down
If you're still in contract you unfortunately won't be allowed to leave your contract penalty free as a result of the increase.
Mobile users can typically only cancel their contract if an increase is what regulator Ofcom deems is "of material detriment" to them, and an inflation linked increase is unlikely to fit this bill.
So your best option will be to haggle your price down. Use a mobile comparison site, such as to see if you could save by switching elsewhere.
Then take this to your provider and argue that cheaper prices elsewhere, alongside a price hike, mean you're not happy with the service provided.
If you're out of contract and want to stay - also haggle
Again, compare prices elsewhere and then come armed with the facts when you're talking to a customer services rep.
If it won't budge on price, see if you could get extra minutes, texts, data or freebies such as Spotify or Apple Music chucked in.
Switch to a Sim-only deal if you're out of contract
If you're out of contract, check if you can save by switching elsewhere.
You can either take out a new contract or, if you now own the handset outright, consider getting a cheap rolling Sim-only tariff.
These can start from around just £5 a month.
Vodafone says the increase is applied to your monthly fee, before any discounts are applied.
The provider wouldn't tell us exactly how many people are impacted but said it would be millions. It has around 19.5million UK customers.
Sadly affected customers can't cancel penalty free as a result of the hikes though, as telecoms regulator Ofcom allows mobile firms to increase prices once a year in line with inflation as long as providers notify you before you sign up.
This will usually be detailed in your contract or you'll be told verbally in a shop or over the phone.
Last year Vodafone also upped bills by 2.5 per cent.
Elsewhere, EE is hiking bills by 2.2 per cent from March 30 while O2 is increasing costs by 2.7 per cent from April.
Three is upping bills by 2.7 per cent from May.
More on bills
A Vodafone spokesperson said: "We appreciate now is not a good time to be communicating a price rise.
"It’s something the industry does annually and our competitors have announced their intention to increase prices earlier this year.
"But we are committed to keeping the country connected and are investing £1billion a year in our network to give our customers the best experience we can."