Question: Who currently has the best cell phone plan for $40 per month or less?

[DarkFury]

Just wanted to get the opinions of folks out there...

Currently I am on a month to month with Sprint for $29.99 per month for 300 anytime minutes, unlimited nights (after 9pm) and weekends, caller ID, and voice mail.

My "normal usage" in a month is under 250 anytime minutes, however every Christmas when I go home to Florida I always end up running over my anytime minutes (this year my normal $34.00 bill (after fees and taxes) came out to about $125 for the overages at .40 per minute.

Sprint doesn't have any kind of rollup minutes or anything that I can add to my plan other than moving up to their $39.99 plan with 450 anytime minutes (which really doesnt reflect my calling behavior during the other 11 months of the year) plus they want me to sign a 2 year contract.

On top of this they offered to give me a $150 credit towards a new phone if I should choose to renew the contract, but right now I'm just hesitant to do that without researching other options.

I just wanted to get an opinion of whats available with the other carriers that would fit my calling habits. (/me now wishes I had jumped on the now discontinued "fair and flexible" plan that Sprint had where you could buy 100 additional minutes for $5 if you went over. SIGH!!! )

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[ray]

I have been with SprintPCS for 7.5 years and have threatened to leave only 2 times during this time. My current plan is as follows:

$40.00/month (after employer discount)
300 Anytime Minutes
Long Distance included
Unlimited Nights and Weekends (starting at 8pm)
Unlimited Anytime SprintPCS to SprintPCS
Unlimited Data Plan (Sprint PCS Vision Pack)

I realize that my plan is almost identical to yours, but I wanted to point out the upgrades I received when I did threaten to leave SprintPCS.

The first time around my plan was set at 200 anytime minutes for $29.99. To keep me around, they gave me 300 anytime minutes and unlimited nights and weekends beginning at 8pm (instead of 9pm) for the same price. At the time, this was comparable to their Free & Clear plans for new customers.

The second time I called they gave me Unlimited anytime SprintPCS to PCS minutes for the same price. My plan remained $29.99.

I replaced my old phone with Treo650 about 6 months ago and ordered the Sprint PCS Vision Pack which gives me unlimited data transfer for $15/month. This bumped my monthly total to $44.99/month. After taxes my bill is about $50/month. Because I receive a corporate discount, my total bill is actually only $40/month when all is said and done.

While my plan isn't loaded with thousands of minutes like most of the plans available on any other service, I am content with it since I have only gone over my monthly minutes three times in 7.5 years. Additionally, SprintPCS currently offers the cheapest unlimited data plan at $15/month while all the other services are upwards of $20-30/month.

If you like Sprint as much as I do, call them up and see if they'll connect you to their retainment department. You might be able to get a couple extra hundred minutes for free. I may not have gotten THAT much out of calling in to cancel, but it was still better than nothing.

[mcs328]

I have Sprint for good gosh...almost 10 years. I changed my plan to the following in December.

$30/month
500 AT
Unlimited Free after 7pm
Unlimited (Power) Vision - Basically free internet the way I use it.
Unlimited Picture Mail
Free Roaming
Free Long Distance
Free mobile to mobile

However NO ADD A LINE.

I was stupid and didn't take the 10% discount and I don't have any other discount.

I just got the Samsung m610 and I have few quips about it. Speakerphone is horrible. So even though the trial telenav is great the weak speakerphone makes it unusable without looking at the screen. The ringer volume isn't as loud as I think it should be.

Send me a PM if you're interested in the plan I have.

EDIT: Let me just add the link to a FAQ of the plan http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=385350

[Jenny]

I have T-Mobile.

$40/month
1500 Anytime/Anywhere minutes

But I dunno if that is available anymore.

[DarkFury]

I have Sprint for good gosh...almost 10 years. I changed my plan to the following in December.

$30/month
500 AT
Unlimited Free after 7pm
Unlimited (Power) Vision - Basically free internet the way I use it.
Unlimited Picture Mail
Free Roaming
Free Long Distance
Free mobile to mobile

However NO ADD A LINE.

I was stupid and didn't take the 10% discount and I don't have any other discount.

I just got the Samsung m610 and I have few quips about it. Speakerphone is horrible. So even though the trial telenav is great the weak speakerphone makes it unusable without looking at the screen. The ringer volume isn't as loud as I think it should be.

Send me a PM if you're interested in the plan I have.

EDIT: Let me just add the link to a FAQ of the plan http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=385350
OMG!!! :eek:

PM sent... :wow:

[Prngr44]

Something else to think about... if you have access to a corporate plan discount, you don't necessarily have to buy your phone/plan through your work but you can "register" that line for your company's discount after the fact.

I have Verizon and if I would have bought it through my company's rep, I would have paid almost $200 more for the phones we ended up getting for free through Amazon. Not only that, we only had to sign a 1 year deal instead of 2. Once I got the phones I registered through our company and got my 15% off.

[DarkFury]

Thank you mcs328!!!

I was able to get the same deal that you have above... PLUS I got the following "extras"

Free First incoming minute
500 Free Text Messages
10% Loyalty Discount (I've been with Sprint over 10 years)
25% Corporate Discount (Guess workin' for the Gubment is good with Sprint :D )

I went ahead and upgraded my phone with the free $150 discount they gave me and got a Sanyo M1 phone (Camera/Video/Music phone with 1GB memory.)

On top of all that, they let me keep my phone number!!! WOOT WOOT!!

One side note... the "customer service" folks were less than helpful... and when I asked to speak to a Supervisor about the plan they somehow "disconnected" my call (hmmmm... yeah, that was an accident right. :shifty: )

Anyways, when I called back I just went for the jugular and asked to talk to the Retentions department and the folks there got me taken care of quite nicely! Heh...

[mcs328]

HOLY CRAP that's good. I got to keep my number...thought I mentioned you wouldn't lose your number despite what other people say. Yeah customer service isn't that great the first round, that's tier 1. Executive service is usually the last round.

I don't need the first minute free but the 500 text would be nice if text which I don't. I use a combined 100 minutes a month peak and off peak. Congrats...you bill should be like under $30 including the tax and fees.

[renovation]

We've been with Sprint for years to and we have a shared minutes plan. Only thing I hate about them is if you upgrade one phone, they renew the contract for the whole system. And if you upgrade to swap phones the replacement time to get a free or $150 off can change to make it a lot longer time between upgrades. I have found this on my phone I use right now: they say I have 14 months left until I can get the $150 off even though I have had this unit for 18 months now. :(

[Markel]

This March I'm due for an upgraded phone on my Verizon plan. But I'm thinking of telling them to hold off - my wife will be due for an upgrade in June, and the two other phones on the plan will be due at the end of this year. I might just wait until all of them are due for an upgrade, then decide if I want to stay with my current Verizon plan or jump to a different one. (And I'll probably tell Verizon why I'm waiting on upgrading my phone, just to see if they'll make me an offer I can't refuse. ;) )

[DarkFury]

WOOT!!!!

This deal just got even sweeter.....


Turns out, there was an additional $75 rebate (good until Sept 2007) available for any Sprint phone over $299 MSRP available from Kellogs.

The thing is... this rebate came out on boxes of Kellogs cereal in the December 2006 time frame and boxes of cereal in grocery stores today are now running a different promotion.

So I went out looking for one of these "Nextel/Sprint rebate boxes" of cereal and unsurprisingly, all the local grocery stores I checked didn't have any in their current cereal stock.

So I got to thinking... where would I find one of these boxes? Hmmmm... it would have to be in a store that keeps stock older than current....

Then it came to me.... BIG LOTS!!!! (or Odd Lots if that is what you have in your city)

So I went up to Big Lots and lo and behold, they had a few boxes of cereal with the rebate inside! Probably the best $2.30 I have spent in a long time.

So now, my new phone is only gonna cost me $125 with the additional rebate. WOOT!!!! :D

[mcs328]

Sweet. I've looked for those boxes casually but I didn't see any. My laziness costs me. Did you get your new phone yet?

You're saving money left and right there DF. How much are you saving before you got the plan?

[DarkFury]

Well will this ROLLER COASTER never cease...

Just got off the phone with Sprint again... turns out some folks made some mistakes and assumptions here.

For starters, they just told me that Retentions and Customer Support can't set up a SERO account. <insert big shock icon here :eek: >

So now, since they have already sent me the new phone, I'm sitting there going... ok... so are you saying I can't have the agreed to plan from above????

Well this kicks off a chain of events where Retentions makes me go set up a direct account with the SERO folks from the website (in which I will lose my current cell #). We get that account established, but then the SERO people tell me that I have to contact Sprint directly to get my new cell #. So I call Sprint customer support again and get bounced around to about 4 different people until ultimately I ask to speak back to the Retentions department again.

Well... now in Retentions is saying "whoa... now you have 2 phone accounts" My response, "Well I asked you BEFORE I signed up if that was going to happen and you assured me that it wouldn't."

So now we start trying to figure out how to correct this mess. For starters they called the SERO people and had that plan cancelled... (of course I was like... hoo boy. :eek: ) Next they started trying to rework their current offerings to match that of the SERO plan and they go in and cancel my SERO account.

Ultimately what got hammered out is....

450 Anytime minutes
Unlimited Nights and Weekends starting at 7 pm
Unlimited Power Vision (internet and picture mail)
Unlimited Mobile to Mobile
Unlimited Roaming
Free Long Distance
Free First Incoming Minute
500 Free Text Messages
I keep my same cell phone number

All for $36 with my 10% Loyalty Discount. Also in 2 months my 25% corporate discount should kick in to make that total go down a little bit further.


Either way, I generally kept my cool with the whole situation as I went around the bend several times with their customer support people, although it was definitely a frustrating experience.

[stufine]

Dark hats off to you.. sure you could guess where i would tellem to put that phone.
Markel are you on a shared plan? if so you better check into upgrades. its not the same. If your like me and have dam near all the family on your account.. then no biggie. Howardforums has alot of good info for reading

[DarkFury]

Dark hats off to you.. sure you could guess where i would tellem to put that phone.
Honestly, I try to keep a cool head when dealing with these kinds of conflict.

Yeah... yelling and screaming might be fun and all, but ultimately I do want to work to come to an agreeable solution and not be angry in the end.

Generally, I do hate dealing with "customer support" in these kinds of negotiations. I'd much rather just go straight to the "head cheeze" who can tell me straight up what is the deal without all the runaround.

Honestly, that is kinda the problem with many of these customer support areas. Nobody has the "authority" to make a final decision and pretty much they seem to operate by committee. As a customer, we just want one person to settle our issue....and not get bounced around all over the place.

[mcs328]

oh my!! That's horrible!! Well good thing you kept your cell phone number. So you didn't get the SERO plan afterall??? I assume it's much better than what you before. Did they call you or did you call them that initiates all this?

[MikeD]

How many people have a work cell that they keep for personal use?

I haven't had a personal cell phone in years. I've always used my work phone, my employer never minds. Then again, not a heavy cell user here...

[DarkFury]

oh my!! That's horrible!! Well good thing you kept your cell phone number. So you didn't get the SERO plan afterall??? I assume it's much better than what you before. Did they call you or did you call them that initiates all this?
I called them to ask a question... and it exposed that nothing had been set on my account from the first rep I talked to.

That just was the Sux... but on the bright side, the plan I now have confirmed is still better than what I am currently using even if it isn't SERO.

[Jeffbx]

How many people have a work cell that they keep for personal use?

I haven't had a personal cell phone in years. I've always used my work phone, my employer never minds. Then again, not a heavy cell user here...

Me too - we have Verizon, and all of the employees use the same pool of minutes. So say we have 100 phones, each phone with 400 minutes or whatever, all 40k minutes go into one huge pool and everyone uses that. Some people use 1000 minutes, some use 10, but it all balances out. I haven't paid for a personal cell phone for about 7 yrs or so.

[MikeD]

Me too - we have Verizon, and all of the employees use the same pool of minutes. So say we have 100 phones, each phone with 400 minutes or whatever, all 40k minutes go into one huge pool and everyone uses that. Some people use 1000 minutes, some use 10, but it all balances out. I haven't paid for a personal cell phone for about 7 yrs or so.

That's how my current job is set up, and how my last one was too.

On average, I probably make 1-2 cell calls per day. Nothing big, maybe call the wife at home, or check in with a buddy or family member. I can't imagine it costs much, and my employer has never said a word to me about it.

[cheapie]

i use mine a ton for personal but our minutes are pooled as well. it's probably been 4 years since i've had a personal cell.

[mcs328]

My company doesn't pay for cell phones. I'm not in sales and I'm not on call when the network goes down.

[bachviet]

My company doesn't pay for cell phones. I'm not in sales and I'm not on call when the network goes down.
Consider yourself lucky. :D I would hate to have my weekend ruined when the work cell phone/pager going off especially this Sunday.

[Prngr44]

Another thing to think about if you use your personal cell phone for work use and aren't reimbursed for it you can take a tax credit for it. I generally do the %-age rule and deduct 25% of my bill to be used as a non reimbursed business expense.

[AlpineJay]

Back when I had my IT job, the Blackberry they gave me had unlimited data plan but the minutes were a la carte (no minutes included whatsoever). Needless to say, I hesitated making any personal calls.