Buying a phone is already an uphill battle, but keeping it running while using those expensive data plans adds to the woes. With your phone bill fattening every month, maybe it is time to do something different. Today let us tell you 5 amazing tips to lessen your carrier charges.
1) Employee and School Discounts
Many companies, especially the ones in the Fortune 500 companies, partner with phone carrier companies to provide special discounts to their employees and their families. Many small sized or local companies also have such deals, but they might not advertise them. Similarly, student discounts also often go unadvertised.
You have to be diligent and persistent in seeking out such deals. Going to your human resources department can reveal that a certain carrier choice will save your money. Your university’s administration may also let you into some cool deals. The savings can drop your costs by 10 to 30 percent every month, and that is a good deal!
Some companies provide direct discounts to students, but they are often underutilized due to lack of awareness. So grab your phone and call your phone company for a discount if you are a student.
2) Analyze Your Bill and Find a New Plan
One of the best ways to save money on your cell phone costs is by choosing a custom made or a tailored data usage plan. Paying for the extra minutes, bytes, and messages is probably not a good and viable option to choose.
It can get tough to compare the data plans of several carriers and make a choice that fits your bill. However, using sites like BillShrink.com and FixMyCellBill.com can help you receive professionally tailored data plans without the need of crunching those confusing numbers. They will email you the perfect plan for your needs either for free or in the case of MyValids at the cost of $5. Just open these sites and enter your carrier needs to start saving money immediately.
3) Consider Prepaid
Although less than 20 percent Americans use prepaid phones, it is highly unlikely that 80 percent of the population truly requires the contract deals. It is because they are terrified of the change and do not want to take this risk. However, prepaid connections and phones can help you save up some serious dough if you use them intelligently.
Prepaid plans vary, some charge a daily fee while others charge only for the minutes you use. It is a dream come true if you are a light to moderate user of the phone and can keep track of how many minutes you use per day.
Most of these packages have a per-minute charge that costs around 5 to 25 cents per minute. Also, these phones have a daily access fee of a dollar or two. You have a choice of buying blocks of minutes/data or subscribing to monthly plans; whatever floats your boat!
4) Find a New Family
It is a cut throat competition in the cellular services market all around the globe, and this means more benefits, relaxations, and lower costs for the customers! One great way to use this is by opting for the usage of a data plan for a group of people or a “family.” You don’t have to be an actual family to avail these services; you can probably rope anyone into it like your friends, roommates, or neighbors.
As many as 65-percent of Verizon’s users are signed up for multiple-user accounts rather than using a single line phone. Find yourself a group of people you can trust and exploit the competition between the companies to lower your cellular service costs.
5) Ask for a Better Deal
The USA’s big four, i.e., Verizon, Sprint-Nextel, AT&T, and T-Mobile are so hell bent on stealing each others’ customers that it is ridiculously easy for the haggling and maybe even a bit of threatening customer to get his way. The contract is not the writing in the stone; you can easily bargain and get the plan that you desire. Call the promotions department on a regular basis and keep checking with the ever changing cellular plans. It might be that there are some perfectly tailored plans that you desire but are unaware of.
If you do find something worth trying, ask the representative that whether it will extend your current contract’s duration or not. Ask twice, otherwise, you might wind up with a great deal but a contract that lasts longer than you want.
If you’re near the end of your contract, it is time to cash big time. Call your company and threaten them that you are considering to take your business elsewhere, and ask for specials upgrades and other discounts. You’ll be amazed to see how far they’ll drop their prices just to keep you as a customer. Most companies even have unadvertised plans especially made for the customers who threaten to sign up with other carriers.
By now, you have realized that cell phone services are quite flexible and negotiable. If you are just a little tenacious and persuasive, you can easily get a good deal and save some of your hard earned cash when spending on the carrier services.
Have any more tips to save money using carrier services? Comment below!