How to add a Spending Cap on Virgin Mobile
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What is a Spending Cap?
A Spending Cap is a limit on the charges you can pay outside of your monthly plan. You can set a spending limit per month.
How to add a Spending Cap to my Virgin Mobile account
To help you keep an eye on your spending, you’ve got the handy option of setting a Spending Cap on your monthly bill – this can be anything between £0 - £100 per month.
You can also add to or amend your Spending Cap.
So what happens when I reach my Spending Cap?
We’ll send you a text to let you know when you’ve used 80% of your cap amount, and then another when you’ve used 100% of your cap amount. If these two things happen at the same time, or in quick succession; for example if you’ve set a low cap amount and you’re calling a premium number, you may only get one notification. If you’ve set your cap at £0, you’ll only receive the 100% text.
When you reach your Spending Cap, you won’t be able do anything that could result in an out-of-allowance usage charge on your bill. This includes calling or texting premium or international numbers and roaming outside of the EU. You’ll still be able to use your in-allowance services, free services, call emergency numbers and buy data add-ons.
This limit will last until either you increase or remove your Spending Cap. If you’re removing or increasing your Spending Cap, this will take effect immediately. If you decrease your cap amount, or add a brand new cap, the change will take effect from your next bill refresh date.
The best place to find out when your bill is due is by using the My Virgin Media app.
I want to add a Spend Cap to my Volt package
If your household is with both Virgin Media and O2 with Volt benefits, you can now choose to apply a Spend Cap with your O2 monthly tariff, to help control your spend on out-of-bundle charges. Any chargeable usage outside your monthly allowance or outside of any Bolt On allowance will count towards your Spend Cap.
We’ll text you when our systems detect that you’ve used 50% of your Spend Cap, and again if you use 100%. If you set a £0 Spend Cap, or once you reach 100% of your Spend Cap, any further chargeable out-of-bundle usage will not be possible. This means that if you use up your monthly allowance and any Bolt On allowance, any additional chargeable usage will be barred.
You can choose not to have a Spend Cap, or you can choose to have a Spend Cap set at £0, £5, £10, £15, £20, £30, £60, £100 or £200.
Any chargeable usage outside your monthly allowance or outside of any Bolt On usage, such as:
- Additional calls, texts and data usage, when your standard bundle or Bolt On allowance has run out.
- Calling and texting non-geographical or premium rate numbers, aside from those premium rate numbers relating to charities, as these sit outside your spend cap, as set out below.
- Calling and texting any international numbers from the UK.
- Calling directory enquiry services.
- Recurring elements of your bill, such as your airtime plan, device plan, and insurance.
- The price for buying a Bolt On which you opt in to.
- Any charity donations made from your phone.
- Charge to Mobile, such as buying digital content and apps from your phone.
- Any charges relating to the management of your account, which includes, but is not limited to, paper bills, itemised paper bills and late payment fees.
- Any charges for third party services (our access fees for these services are covered in your spend cap, as set out above).
To find out more about Spend Caps and how to add an 02 spend cap, visit O2’s Help Page.
What do spending caps cover?
Spending Caps stop you from being charged for usage beyond a limit specified by you, each month. Charges covered by the cap includes, but is not limited to, going out of your allowance by calling or texting premium or international numbers or roaming outside of the EU. For more detail on what is and isn’t covered, visit our Legal Stuff webpage.
Where can I manage my caps settings?
The best way to view and manage your cap is via the Virgin Mobile app. Just navigate to the Plan tab, and tap Controls to get to set or change your Spending Cap.
Alternatively you can log in online to Your Account. If you set a Spending Cap in Your Account, you can change it later using the Virgin Mobile app.
Additional Spending Caps FAQs
Whether it's £5, £10 or £50, your safety buffer should cover all additional costs outside of your monthly allowance that you feel comfortable with. This should cover calling or texting premium or international numbers or roaming outside of the EU. It’s entirely up to you.
If you set a spending cap at the point of sale on a new contract it will be active with immediate effect, for your first month’s use.
If you set a spending cap after upgrading with us, it will take effect from your next bill cycle.
Note that if you are removing, or increasing your spending cap this will take effect immediately. If you are decreasing your cap, this will take effect when your allowances refresh from your next bill cycle. Any changes will be confirmed via text.
You will be able to add a cap at any time and it will take effect from your next bill cycle as long as you have a Virgin Mobile SIM, not one of the older EE hosted SIMs.
If you do have an older EE hosted SIM and want to set a spending cap, please give us a call and we’ll send you a new Virgin Mobile SIM which will allow you to do it.
Note that if you are removing, or increasing your spending cap this will take effect immediately. If you are decreasing your cap, this will take effect when your allowances refresh from your next bill cycle. Any changes will be confirmed via text.
Each month anything you have spent against your cap will reset, along with your monthly allowances.
You can always view how close you are to your spending cap within the Virgin Mobile app, just tap Home to see the status. Additionally, we will send you a text letting you know when you have reached 80% of your spending cap, and another upon reaching 100%.
If you’ve used your entire spending cap, you will still be able to use any allowances such as receiving texts, making calls and using remaining data. If you don’t have any allowances left, you can increase your cap at any time using this Virgin Mobile app and it will take effect immediately.
Additionally, if you are out of data allowance you can purchase a data add-on at any time.
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