Optus phone upgrade option lets you get a new phone every year
Optus has also changed data inclusions for My Plan Plus, including a new 20GB plan.
Optus has reworked its My Plan Plus contract offerings, changing its pricing and most of the data inclusions and adding a new option that lets you upgrade your phone 12 months into a 24-month contract.
My Plan Plus: Data changes
On the data side, many of the cheaper plans offer slightly less data than they did a couple of days ago, thanks to the end of a limited-time "bonus data" offer that expired yesterday. On the top end of the My Plan Plus scale, however, the $100 plan now offers 15GB, while there's a new $120 with 20GB of data. The $120 plan represents a technical price drop from the previous $130 plan, though recent promotions had seen that plan offered at only $100.
My Plan Plus: International calling
Aside from data, the $120 plan also offers unlimited calling minutes to a selection of countries, while every plan but the $40 plan offers a fixed number of calling minutes to the following destinations:
- Austria
- Bangladesh
- Cambodia
- Canada
- Chile
- China
- Croatia
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Italy
- Japan
- Malaysia
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- Poland
- Singapore
- South Africa
- South Korea
- Taiwan
- Thailand
- Turkey
- United Kingdom
- United States of America
- Vietnam
My Plan Plus: New phone option
Optus has also announced a scheme that’s essentially identical to Telstra’s existing "New Phone Feeling" plan, where you can upgrade to a new phone after only twelve months on a twenty four month contract. An upgrade attracts a one-off $99 charge plus recontracting for a further 24 months at whatever the plan prices are at that point in time.
You do have to hand over your old handset, and it has to be in "good working condition". What does that mean? Optus defines it as follows:
- Your device can power on and off.
- Your touchscreen is fully functional and has no imperfections such as lines or marks.
- Your device does not have any missing buttons or damage to other components such as charging ports, SIM tray.
- The device (including the touchscreen) is not cracked and does not have any severe scratches (normal wear and tear such as light marks and scratches are okay).
- Any locking features are disabled (for example, find my iPhone on iOS devices).
My Plan Plus: Get out of your contract early
One of the more interesting quirks of the new My Plan Plus plans is that you can exit the contract at any time you need to without having to pay out the full value of the contract, which is usually the case for most telco contracts. You will have to pay out any remaining handset payment fees "along with any amount Optus was going to cover" to exit your plan, but you won't have to pay the basic plan fee for all remaining months.
Interested in a new Optus My Plan Plus plan? Here are the details for each plan tier:
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