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11:41 am
August 15, 2010
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I went back to Aug 2012 but couldn't find a thread on this.
I just switched a relative's Speakout account from 25c/min to $30/400min/30d. If he uses all 400min before the 30d is up, can I pay for another monthly plan or is he stuck with 25c/min until the 30d are up?
Also, it says it will renew on Apr 1 but he may want to go back to BTM when the month is up. Is there any way I can set it not to renew, without changing immediately to BTM? His balance is high enough to cover another $30 so I guess it won't change to BTM on Apr 1 due to insufficient balance. If I have to switch to BTM manually, must I do it on Mar 31 or can I do it on Apr 1?
Thanks!
=aw
9:50 am
April 23, 2011
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ottawa2010 said:
If I have to switch to BTM manually, must I do it on Mar 31 or can I do it on Apr 1?
I think that you have to manually turn off the monthly charge before the end of the month (and lose whatever days you have already paid for between when you turn it off and when it would be automatically renewed. If you can remember to turn it off just before it renews, that is no big deal.
11:18 am
July 6, 2012
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For ending a value plan and just dropping back to by-the-minute, if you've used up all the minutes before the plan renews, you can cancel at any time. You do not have to wait till the renewal date. However, if you have not used up all the minutes but you still want to cancel, then you would have to cancel it before the auto-renewal.
If you used up all the plan minutes before the month was up and you wanted to re-up another monthly plan, you can do this - but first you have to cancel the one that's had its minutes exhausted. I did this when I first started using Speakout, and didn't have a good idea of what I'd need. I was on the $20 plan, and burned through all the minutes in about 10 days.
So I went onto the website and where it shows you are on the plan (it shows how many minutes remain and what day it renews) I just clicked on cancel. You have to wait 10 or 15 minutes for the cancellation to get fully processed. IIRC they send a text to your phone or something, but you can just wait a while then go back to the account page.
When the account page shows you have no plan, just buy another monthly plan. Like if you needed 800 minutes a month, you could just go for the $30 plan till you ran out of minutes, then cancel it, then buy another $30 plan, and just keep doing that.
It might sound counter-intuitive, but really if you're on a monthly value plan and you've used up all your minutes fast enough, you may as well cancel it and start a new one. At 400 minutes for $30, that's 13.3 cents per minutes. Compared to 25 cents / minute, you're saving a dollar every 9 minutes you talk.
9:29 am
August 15, 2010
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Thanks, that's what I needed to know, though it's a new "need to know" (when I posted this before, it was for another relative and sadly they didn't need to renew after Apr 1).
Not that counter-intuitive, though I guess you do end up leaving a few minutes on the table, unless you can be certain you used the 400th minute, hang up, wait, re-sub.
The reason I thought they might say you can only add a 30-day play once every 30 days is that I figured the value plans were priced on the assumption most people will leave a few minutes unused (as I do every month on my postpaid plan elsewhere). If you can get 800 (or more) minutes by cancelling and subscribing again, then there's less wastage (or spoilage or whatever it would be).
I will have to monitor this phone so I know when they get down almost to 0min, and I'll probably lose a few minutes when I cancel and sub again (it's worth it to avoid having them talk for 5min at 25c/min).
BTW it's 7.5c/min on the $30 plan (3000c/400min = 7.5c/1min). Much better than 25c/min!
Thanks again!
=aw
9:22 am
August 15, 2010
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Following up, thanks for the info it all turned out well. Here's what happened about 15min ago.
The plan was down to 2min (and 6d) remaining. So I cancelled the plan, losing the 2min. Then I hit reload-reload-reload-reload-reload-reload-etc. until I saw it was gone, then I signed up for another 400min and hit reload-reload-reload-reload-reload-reload-etc. until I saw it was there.
Noon on a weekday was NOT my first choice of time to do this, I was hoping to do it late one night (someone else is using the handset and I didn't want them to start a call while I was doing this).
The whole thing took <10min from first click on deactivate with 2min showing to seeing 400min available.
I was happy to see they don't have a once-every-30-days limit on signing up for a monthly plan. Somewhat annoyed at no option "don't renew on my renewal date" (not an issue this time) but overall it's worked out well.
Thanks again!
=aw
9:48 am
April 23, 2011
Offline
"aw" says:
BTW it's 7.5c/min on the $30 plan (3000c/400min = 7.5c/1min). Much better than 25c/min!
Actually, the real "out of pocket rate can be even better if you buy credit during a $25 or $20 promotion:
If you buy credit during a promotion, you can buy $120 SOD (SpeakOut Dollars) or even $125 SOD for $100 CAD. Thus the $30 SOD plan can cost as little as $24 CAD, giving a rate of 2400c/400min = 6.0c/min.
With HST in Ontario that would be $113 CAD gets you $125 SOD, so $30 SOD costs $27.12 CAD, for a rate of 6.78 c/min (or you can just add the 13% to the 6.0c/min to get the same result of 6.78c/min.
3:25 pm
August 15, 2010
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That's a good point, though for those of us who have the phone on 25c/min most of the year (and don't use it), $25/year is close to enough, certainly $50/year will do it. This account used to have >$200 though so I guess over time we use it more than we think.
However, we also have to take into account the outrageous $1.25/mo for 911 service. That part of the refill ($15/yr) shouldn't count towards the airtime costs I think.
=aw
8:38 am
July 6, 2012
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Sadly with the revamped plans, there's no longer a 400 minute plan of any kind. The cheapest is $30 for 300 minutes now.
10 cents / minute I guess isn't too bad, but that's a 33% price hike from 7.5 cents / minute.
That combined with my usage increasing recently (my cell is now my only phone as well as my work phone) I'm going to have to jump ship for somewhere with unlimited minutes. Probably Wind, I think they have $35/mo for unlimited province-wide calling + unlimited text + data.
