Alternating between Tchibo & Lidl 5 GB/mo plans - would that work?

[RobF]

I'm presently using a Tchibo SIM card in my Huawei E173u-1 Internet stick for G3 Internet data access (no phone calling or SMS involved), and I'm on their XL plan for EUR 20/mo with a cap of 5 GB fast data transfer/mo. It looks now as though I'll typically be running out of this 5 GB allowance in considerably less than 30 days, and then would be left out in the cold with a 64 kbps data transfer rate for the rest of the month. So I'm thinking of unlocking the stick, and then putting in the Lidl SIM card with their 5 GB high speed data plan for EUR 15/mo. Both cards appear to offer very similar terms, incl. support for VoIP and video calling via Skype (over the O2 network), which is important to me. Is that correct?

What I'm not quite clear about are the details in the fine print regarding the required tactic of alternating between the two cards, if need be. With Tchibo, it appears that the monthly XL plan is deactivated if within 2 days after its expiration there aren't sufficient funds (i.e. at least EUR 20) in the account. "Wird nicht gekündigt, werden die Optionen automatisch für 1 weiteren Monat aktiviert, wenn innerhalb von 48 Stunden nach Ablauf des vorherigen Buchungsmonats ausreichend Guthaben vorhanden ist, ansonsten erfolgt keine Reaktivierung."

Would the Tchibo XL account continue to be maintained but simply be dormant until new funds are put into it, let's say three weeks later, when I've used up my 5 GB allowance on the Lidl card? And similarly, what would be Lidl's policies wrt to continual activation and deactivation of the account at less than monthly intervals?

Or are there prepaid cards available from second-tier MVNO's that use the O2, Vodaphone or T-Mobile network that offer favorable terms similar to those of Tchibo and Lidl but are strictly pay-as-you-go, i.e. you purchase 5 or 10 GB of fast transfer data volume for 15/20 or 30/40 EUR, and you're free to use it up in a week or a month or 3 months, whatever, and simply recharge the account when you've run out of that allowance? This is how my WirMobil (e-plus) prepaid plan works for my handy (for calls and SMS). Are there comparable prepaid GMS data-only plans?

[inquisitor]

Lidl and Tchibo give exactly the same service apart from the different pricing and the fact that Lidl do have an additional limit of 500MB/day besides those 5GB/day.

Subscriptions to Tchibo's data options will only recur if there's enough credit left at the end of the billing period or if you recharge enough credit within 48 hours after the last billing period has finished.
With Lidl subscriptions to data options do also recur but afaik you don't have these 48 hours grace period to reload. So you would have to manually resubscribe to your data option if it could not be prolonged due to the lack of credit.

Anyway you are not obliged to recharge. If your data option is not being prolonged this doesn't affect your account and your SIM will still remain active. You can recharge even months later and resubscribe to a new data option.

Regarding your question of subscription and cancellation of data options within a month, this is simply impossible as you can't switch data options within the current billing period. You may cancel your data option but this will not take effect before the current billing period has ended.

BILDmobil are the only MVNO I know, who offer a data packs with longer validity, namely 5GB valid for 90 days for € 40 (see BILDmobil Daten-SIM ? Prepaid-wiki), but they are on the Vodafone network where VoIP is actually being blocked.

[RobF]

Thank you very much for your excellent advice. I think you pretty much answered my questions.

To clarify my query about the strategy of alternating between Tchibo and Lidl that you addressed in your fourth paragraph, I was thinking about the following hypothetical scenario:

Start a Tchibo 5 GB plan on Dec. 1. Three weeks later, I find that I've already used up 5 GB. On Dec. 21, switch SIM cards, start a Lidl 5 GB plan and let the Tchibo plan go dormant. Three weeks later, around Jan 15, I find that again I've already used up my 5 GB allotment from Lidl. Switch SIM cards again, reactivate the Tchibo 5 GB plan and let the Lidl plan go dormant. And so on.

In this way, I could manage to have seemless service from the O2 network, if typically I use up a bit more than 5 GB/mo, without breaks during which speed is reduced to virtually nil. From what you've said, this should work, shouldn't it, or am I missing something?