I'm tricky. Mike and I have had Nextel phones for the passed 2 years, and wanted to move back to Cingular. Our contracts didn't expire until January 06, but I got Mike a Cingular Motorola Black Razr V3 in September. I ported his number and got him a new Nextel number, then changed our Nextel plans to a Team Share (both phones share minutes). Nextel didn't realize it was just me using all the minutes and the new phone # was just a dummy number to get out of paying the early termination fee on Mike's phone.
So comes January and I am out of contract with Nextel. Now I need to move to Cingular and get a new phone. I wanted a Blackberry (aka Nerd Machine). I had one a few years ago and desperately missed it. Hopefully the whole NTP vs RIM will just go away. I'm pretty confident they'll strike a deal. Even if not, my device won't end up useless to me, so I'm ok.
So comes January and I am out of contract with Nextel. Now I need to move to Cingular and get a new phone. I wanted a Blackberry (aka Nerd Machine). I had one a few years ago and desperately missed it. Hopefully the whole NTP vs RIM will just go away. I'm pretty confident they'll strike a deal. Even if not, my device won't end up useless to me, so I'm ok.
At the same time, Chase's TMobile phone is seriously tore-up, but his contract doesn't end until July. If I upgrade through them, I have to extend the contract, and I'd rather just move him to Cingular with us. So again, I get tricky:
Thanks to the wealth of information over at Howard Forums on everything cell-related (I <3 you, "Howard"), I learned how I could get my husbands cell phone unlocked, for free, through Cingular themselves. I got it unlooked and gave it to Chase to use with his TMo. Now Mike has no phone. Trickiness #3:
Amazon has a deal with cell phones that you get a rebate back on the phones you buy through them if you enter into a service contract too (I've bought 3 other phones this way). Sometimes you get like $100, sometimes the full phone price, sometimes MORE than what you paid or the phone. In the case of the Razr, the rebate was for the full purchase price (albeit it takes 3+ months to get it back). So I bought Razr #2 to replace Mike's and the Blackberry 8700 for me, and put them on a family plan. I won't get the rebate for the Blackberry, but I will for the Razr. The Family Plan cost me $10 extra a month, but I got 100 more minutes per month, too. Since all the minutes are shared between the two phone numbers (and the 2nd number is just a dummy number) they're all mine. When the TMo contract for Chase expires, I'll just take out his TMo sim and put in the Cingular dummy phone # sim. Voila. Everyone got a new phone, and all I paid for was the Blackberry. Plus, the extra $10 per month cost for the Family Plan add on was recouped by selling both our old Nextel phones back to Nextel for $30 each. I told you I was tricky. RUN DMC should right a song about me.
Thanks to the wealth of information over at Howard Forums on everything cell-related (I <3 you, "Howard"), I learned how I could get my husbands cell phone unlocked, for free, through Cingular themselves. I got it unlooked and gave it to Chase to use with his TMo. Now Mike has no phone. Trickiness #3:
Amazon has a deal with cell phones that you get a rebate back on the phones you buy through them if you enter into a service contract too (I've bought 3 other phones this way). Sometimes you get like $100, sometimes the full phone price, sometimes MORE than what you paid or the phone. In the case of the Razr, the rebate was for the full purchase price (albeit it takes 3+ months to get it back). So I bought Razr #2 to replace Mike's and the Blackberry 8700 for me, and put them on a family plan. I won't get the rebate for the Blackberry, but I will for the Razr. The Family Plan cost me $10 extra a month, but I got 100 more minutes per month, too. Since all the minutes are shared between the two phone numbers (and the 2nd number is just a dummy number) they're all mine. When the TMo contract for Chase expires, I'll just take out his TMo sim and put in the Cingular dummy phone # sim. Voila. Everyone got a new phone, and all I paid for was the Blackberry. Plus, the extra $10 per month cost for the Family Plan add on was recouped by selling both our old Nextel phones back to Nextel for $30 each. I told you I was tricky. RUN DMC should right a song about me.
How about you buy me a new Razr phone? That would be great. And then you would get your money back when the rebate comes in.
ReplyDeleteSorry bud, but Sprint = CDMA, the Razr is GSM, so an unlocked Razr won't work. However, there is good news No...I have read a CDMA Razr is in the works.
ReplyDeleteSprint carries a Samsung A900, which is horrendously ugly, but similar to the Razr.