iPhone problems/advice needed

[dtr_angel]

Yep. That's what it will be, plus figure in the work discount.
My bill is
$40 for 1 line under contract
$50 for 2 lines not under contract
$50 for 2G of data
___________
$140 with my small work discount plus taxes. I am new to getting the discount because the company I work for was recently acquired by a new company so only started getting the discount. I was told I only get it off the data portion, but it's more than the no discount I had before I guess. Your discount might be different.

When my contract is up I can keep my current phone and drop all 3 of us to no contract and put my bill down to $130 for 3 lines. But I find I need a new phone about every 2 years because I don't by the insurance on it or fix them and while I take care of them physically, I find the phones just stop working right for me in 2 years.

Oh to add. I'd suggest making sure you make the changes at a corporate owned store. Sometimes the franchise ones charge you for things that ATT doesn't. It did take me about 30 minutes at the store to go over everything and get things changed, but I didn't incur any costs at all, and got $100 credit on my bill for adding the 2 lines.

regards

Hmm I'm not sure if the AT&T store we have here is a corporate or franchise. I live in a small town. It's inside of the mall. How does it work with getting a new phone with this no contract plan? Like you, our phones are usually about falling apart at the 2 year mark so we end up signing for 2 more years to get the free/cheap phone. 2 years ago we got our iphone 4 for $99. I don't want to pay $500 for an iphone if I need a new one! I am going to try to get applecare to replace mine since it's been wonky. DH's is fine though.

Thank you so much for the info!

 

[Order66]

If you go to the ATT website you can search the stores near you. The little icon on the store will tell you if it's corporate or an "authorized retailer".

Changing your contract may not be an issue, but once for example my son's sim card went bad. ATT told me just go to the store and ask for a new one. I went to the authorized retailer store in the mall and they wanted to charge me $25. I told them no thanks and found the closest corporate store. They not only handed me a new card for free but asked me if I had his phone and they'd do all the transferring of his saved stuff too. For that reason I always go to the stores actually owned by ATT. I know they won't have charges for services ATT provides free.

I did ask about phone upgrading, etc..... as we told the boys if they maintain good grades for the year we'd talk about newer cooler phones for them. How the guy who did my change over explained it you can choose to either upgrade and have a contract for the discounted phone price and pay $40 for the service or you can use the ATT Next program where you'll save $15 per month and have the phone payment spread out over a monthly plan for 20 months. It worked out to be close in actual cost depending on the phone. With older or cheaper phones....it looks like you'd save by taking the contract discount. I'll probably do the 3rd option......see if we can't find phones from a 3rd party seller cheaper and just keep them on the no contract pricing.

regards

 

[mickeyluvr004]

I took my sister's old iPhone 4 to straight talk. I pay annually and it's just over $40/month for unlimited minutes and texts plus 2.5 gb of data. I've had it for a year and been very happy with the service and haven't had issues anywhere.

wondering how did you switch it over? we have Verizon and due to being unemployed was shut off now employed and want to turn it back on but Verizon wont talk with me due to what is owed can I still turn that phone on and just work with Verizon on the side as I will be paying it but in small incriments lol.. thanks for any help you can offer

 

[3boymthr]

If you have Applecare it is absolutely worth the money. No deductible if you didn't drop or wash it. DS is on his 4th phone thru Applecare. Every time we go in it's a different problem. They were totally amazed the last time we went in at the bad luck he has had. They look at the phone go in the drawer, get him a new one and we walk back out of the store. If we hadn't had the Applecare I'd now be out over $800. Applecare also gets you unlimited phone calls and tech service. You can call them for anything.

 

[dtr_angel]

If you have Applecare it is absolutely worth the money. No deductible if you didn't drop or wash it. DS is on his 4th phone thru Applecare. Every time we go in it's a different problem. They were totally amazed the last time we went in at the bad luck he has had. They look at the phone go in the drawer, get him a new one and we walk back out of the store. If we hadn't had the Applecare I'd now be out over $800. Applecare also gets you unlimited phone calls and tech service. You can call them for anything.

Thanks for the reply! There is no apple store here, I got mine from AT&T. Not sure how it will work, I send mine in to them then they fix it or replace it?

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[dtr_angel]

If you go to the ATT website you can search the stores near you. The little icon on the store will tell you if it's corporate or an "authorized retailer".

Changing your contract may not be an issue, but once for example my son's sim card went bad. ATT told me just go to the store and ask for a new one. I went to the authorized retailer store in the mall and they wanted to charge me $25. I told them no thanks and found the closest corporate store. They not only handed me a new card for free but asked me if I had his phone and they'd do all the transferring of his saved stuff too. For that reason I always go to the stores actually owned by ATT. I know they won't have charges for services ATT provides free.

I did ask about phone upgrading, etc..... as we told the boys if they maintain good grades for the year we'd talk about newer cooler phones for them. How the guy who did my change over explained it you can choose to either upgrade and have a contract for the discounted phone price and pay $40 for the service or you can use the ATT Next program where you'll save $15 per month and have the phone payment spread out over a monthly plan for 20 months. It worked out to be close in actual cost depending on the phone. With older or cheaper phones....it looks like you'd save by taking the contract discount. I'll probably do the 3rd option......see if we can't find phones from a 3rd party seller cheaper and just keep them on the no contract pricing.

regards

Thanks for all this info! Looks like our store is just an authorized retailer, boo. Do you know what your discount comes off of? Right now for me, my 25% does not come off of everything, it's just the cost of the phone line and I think the data. Just wondering how it works on this value service. I'm also reading up on the next program. It seems like a good deal, but I don't think I like the idea of financing a cell phone. What happens after those payments? You get a new phone and start all over again? I also don't want to pay something ridiculous for a cell phone like $500-600! It looks like I can switch to the value service online which is awesome, I won't have to take the toddler to a small boring cell phone store at the mall!

 

[dtr_angel]

Bumping - Order66 just wondering if you could answer what the discount comes off of on your bill? Trying to decide how much data to get. Thanks!

 

[ORDisneyfans]

I just upgraded our phones with AT&T. Any fan discounts come off of data charges only. I researched all of my options thoroughly. The next plan and the contract plan is about the same $ outlay in the long run. The difference is if you will keep your phone for two years (or in our case we pass them down to kids/ or employees and then upgrade) or of you want/need a new phone in 12 or 18 months. The next plan requires you to "trade" your phone in as opposed to getting a new one and keeping your old one too. There are many reviews online pros and cons on both scenarios.

 

[MillauFr]

I also don't want to pay something ridiculous for a cell phone like $500-600!

I guess I don't understand. No matter what plan you have you are going to pay $500-$600 if you get a new IPhone. You either pay for it up front or pay for it on a monthly basis.

We will see if T-Mobile's attempt to eliminate contract plans will succeed and force A&TT and Verizon to abandon them as well.

 

[robinb]

oh I didn't know about that! Thanks, I just looked into it and I think that is what we are going to do! We can get away with the lowest amount of data (300mb for $20) so that's awesome! So it should be $25 x 2 + $20 = $70 plus taxes and fees?

Do you use a lot of minutes on your phone? Consumer Cellular is $15 200 minutes on each phone plus $20 for 500 MB and 5000 texts to share between the phones. That's $50 and I don't think the fees are that much as ATT's fees.

 

[dtr_angel]

I guess I don't understand. No matter what plan you have you are going to pay $500-$600 if you get a new IPhone. You either pay for it up front or pay for it on a monthly basis.

We will see if T-Mobile's attempt to eliminate contract plans will succeed and force A&TT and Verizon to abandon them as well.

I get what you are saying - I don't want to pay $500-600 for a phone up front or over time I guess I've been spoiled by getting the phone for $1 or so when I sign a 2 year contract. So it's either get phone for less and pay more for service, or pay more for phone and less for service.

Do you use a lot of minutes on your phone? Consumer Cellular is $15 200 minutes on each phone plus $20 for 500 MB and 5000 texts to share between the phones. That's $50 and I don't think the fees are that much as ATT's fees.

not really but most of our minutes are m2m and we have rollover with AT&T in case we would have to use a lot of minutes on a particular month. I think we have the 550/month plan.

 

[dtr_angel]

Well I ended up not switching to the Value plan. It would've been a savings if I could've done the lowest data plan. I was reviewing our bills for the past year and for the last few months DH has been using a lot of his data (we each get 2gb) so I don't want to switch and pay more for data so we are staying put right now.

If anyone has suggestions of any other pay as you go/no contract options for a iPhone (that we already have) that uses the AT&T network I'd be open to hearing them

Thanks for all the information given!