Free Giffgaff UK SIM cards with £5 free credit
 

Giffgaff is an MVNO on O2 in the United Kingdom and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telefonica, as is O2 itself. If you order a free SIM card from this link, you and I will both receive £5 free credit. You can even request delivery to your temporary accommodation; UK postal addresses are flexible and don't require the recipient's name to be displayed on the letterbox.

If you don't have a UK address, then please PM me and I will use some of my £5 free credit to cover the international postage to send a SIM card to you. You will still receive your £5 free credit as well.

You will need to top up your account with £10 in order to activate the SIM card. This can be done by credit card online or with a voucher from an O2 UK shop.

Cool.

Can you do the initial card activation from overseas, or how does it work?

Yes, but reports suggest that you need a UK-issued credit or debit card. You can also activate it with a giffgaff or O2 top-up voucher; this can be bought in newsagents etc.

I never had a problem toping up with my Austrian issued creditcard!
:D

That's good to hear. It means they aren't blanket-blocking all non-UK cards. Thanks for letting us know.

I mean, I don't really know how you activate a UK prepaid SIM card in general, besides topping it up. I know it is not tied to an ID verification, like in other countries, where the activation means you at least call the operator and tell her you ID number and address.

What is the process for the UK?

In the UK, there's usually no activation process for a prepaid SIM card. The SIM card becomes activated as soon as you put it into a phone. There are no identity requirements whatsoever. Giffgaff is slightly different because the SIM card doesn't become active until you top up by £10 and you first need to create a giffgaff online user account, given that your SIM card is managed only online. If you obtain your SIM card from an existing customer (for example from me), then you will get £5 additional credit in addition to the £10 top-up, giving you a £15 balance for the price of £10.

Giffgaff SIMs seem to activate fine overseas, at least in Canada. I picked up a couple of SIMs for our iPads for a trip a couple of weeks ago - activated them while in Canada, topped them up using a Canadian credit card (you do have to give a fake UK address to do this, though) and off I went. They showed as active here, and worked fine when I hit Heathrow.