These seemed okay, until we read the terms and conditions…
We love cheap mobile deals, and we know you love reading about them. And that’s what we thought we were looking at when we heard about Catch Connect’s (Catch’s mobile service, which is powered by Optus) current prepaid mobile plans. One of them even starts at $5 for 2GB of data, which might be good for your parents or as a burner.
But what really caught our eyes was was the ‘Catchback’ vouchers offered on the 90-day plans. Basically, they’re vouchers you can spend on catch.com.au. For example, for $89 you can get 45GB of data and ‘$89 worth of catch.com.au shopping vouchers.
I personally thought this was pretty cool. I have bought a few things from Catch before, and they have a huge range of products. But then I looked a little closer.
As the conditions show, customers receive three separate vouchers that need to be used in separate transactions. And the minimum spend on those transactions is $60. That’s not exactly cheap.
To crunch the numbers, here’s how much extra money customers on these plans would need to spend if they want to use the entirety of their ‘Catchback’ shopping vouchers:
- $39 plan – $141
- $69 plan – $111
- $89 plan – $90.99
While pre-paid customers are under no obligation to use these vouchers (and there is no lock-in contract), this kind of ‘bonus’ seems to only really benefits Catch. It’s also only available for new customers.
Without the bonus, the plans themselves just aren’t that good. If we take the $69 15GB plan as an example, there are plenty of similar products from the likes of amaysim, Kogan, Lycamobile and Boost Mobile that are cheaper:
And while these providers may not be offering bonus vouchers for new sign ups, they also don’t require you to spend extra money. As always, make sure you shop around before deciding on a new mobile plan, and always read the terms and conditions.