Sprint to cut back discounts on family plans
If you are currently on a family plan with Sprint, and you are also receiving any form of monthly discount based on employment, school, etc., you can expect your bill to go up starting in February 2012.
In order to save some cash, Sprint has decided to change the way they bill for the primary and secondary lines on family plans, in effect creating a new line item charge for the secondary line. Then, Sprint will only apply the monthly discount only to the primary line.
For example, my own 2-line monthly Sprint bill, with my 27% discount, can essentially be broken down like this:
- Line 1 (Everything Data, 1500 shared minutes): $129.99
- Discount: -$35.10
- Line 2: $0.00
After the change, my bill will look more like this:
- Line 1 (Everything Data, 1500 shared minutes): $110.00
- Discount: -$29.70
- Line 2: $19.99
By breaking up the billing for the first and second lines, and refusing to apply the discount on the second line, Sprint is essentially raising my monthly bill $5.40.
Granted, it's not much. I still have a generous discount, it's only around $130 over the course of a two year contract with two lines, and Sprint's prices are still competitive. But, in my opinion, it's a pretty sneaky and underhanded way to try and wrangle a few more bucks out of people each month.
Keep in mind, this change won't affect everyone – if you are on an individual plan, or you aren't receiving any discounts, or you're on a special employee referral plan, you are safe for now. But since I'm one of the unlucky ones, it certainly leaves a sour taste in my mouth, especially after I thought that Sprint had already cut back on everything it possibly could.
How about you? Is this much ado about nothing, or is this the last straw? Sound off below.
[Sprint Feed]
