Tesco Pay As You Go Essentials plans: everything you need to know

Pay As You Go on Tesco Mobile is changing, with the network’s previous Rocket Packs, Triple Credit plans, and Lite plans all now having been replaced by a new selection of plans called Pay As You Go Essentials.

If you’re an existing Tesco Mobile customer you should have been migrated over to these new plans by now, and new customers will now only have the option of an Essentials plan on Pay As You Go.

These are all 30-day bundles and by default they will automatically renew each month – though you can turn off automatic renewal if you don’t want that. And if you don’t want a bundle at all, you can still use your top-up balance for calls, texts, and data, at Tesco Mobile’s standard rates.

The chart below details the selection of Pay As You Go Essentials plans that are available, but under that we’ll look closer at what else you get with them.

No credit check

With a Tesco Mobile Essentials plan you won’t have to pass a credit check, so these are a great choice if you don’t have a high credit rating, or if you’ve recently undergone a credit check and don’t want another one on your file right now.

Free roaming

If you have a Tesco Mobile Essentials plan then you’ll be able to roam at no extra cost in the following 48 destinations (which Tesco Mobile refers to as ‘Home from Home destinations’):

Austria, Azores, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Jersey, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madeira, Malta, Martinique, Mayotte, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Réunion, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, St. Barts, St. Martin, Sweden, Switzerland, and Vatican City.

That covers the EU and beyond, and you’ll be able to use your standard allowance of minutes, texts, and data when in these countries.

There are fewer fair usage restrictions on Tesco Mobile than most networks too, with the company simply stating that: “If you spend more time in Home from Home destinations (than in the UK and the rest of the world), or if you use more of your allowances in Home from Home destinations than in the UK and the rest of the world, then we’ll apply the fair usage policy”, which would typically mean a data surcharge being applied.

Clubcard points

One other perk of Tesco Mobile Essentials plans is that you can earn Clubcard points with them. Just link your Clubcard to your Essentials account (by texting the word CLUBCARD to 28578 from your Tesco Mobile phone), and then you’ll collect one Clubcard point for every £1 you top up.

So these plans are great for frequent Tesco shoppers.

Coverage

Tesco Mobile is an O2 MVNO (mobile virtual network operator), which means it has the same UK coverage as O2.

That includes 99% 4G coverage, with 5G being available in most major towns and cities, as well as many smaller communities.

So you’ll be able to get a signal in most places, and coverage continues to improve all the time, as O2 builds and upgrades masts and other infrastructure.

4G Calling

Whether you’ll prefer these new Essentials bundles to Tesco Mobile’s older Pay As You Go plans will probably largely come down to your own needs and usage cases, but ones objective improvement is that with Essentials plans you can make use of 4G Calling (also known as VoLTE).

That’s the first time Tesco Mobile’s Pay As You Go customers have been able to use 4G Calling, and it’s a useful upgrade, allowing you to continue calling and texting as normal over a 4G connection.

Value

Tesco Mobile’s Essentials plans have a low starting price of just £5 per month, making them a strong choice for light users.

Their mid-tier pricing is competitive too, with for example the 10GB and 25GB plans being very affordably priced.

This service is a little less ideal for heavy users though. For one thing, Tesco Mobile Essentials plans currently top out at 100GB of data – so there’s no unlimited data option. And that top 100GB plan is priced more in line with some unlimited data plans.

As such, if you want unlimited data, or even 100GB+, you might want to consider a Pay Monthly SIM Only plan. On Tesco Mobile, you can currently get unlimited data on such a plan for either £25 per month (on a 24-month contract) or £30 per month (on a 12-month one), while 100GB starts at just £17.50 a month. The downside here is that you have to commit to a contract.

Alternatively, you could consider another network – though then you won’t be getting Tesco Mobile’s specific perks.