How to Pre-Date your Phone Bill and Avoid Overages

Never Be Stressed About Cell Phone Overages Again!

Uh oh.  It happened.  You sent too many texts, used too much data, or called too many people.  Don’t worry, as long as you haven’t actually been billed for the usage, you can actually predate your bill with AT&T.

 

This can come in particularly handy if you are trying to “get by” with the smallest cell phone service package, if you are traveling and didn’t upgrade to an international or roaming package, or if you just happened to use your phone a little bit more than normal this month.

 

The process is surprisingly easy, but many people still don’t know that it is an option, and end up paying hundreds, even thousands, in overage fees (international data is billed at a staggering $20,000/GB as opposed to the normal $12.5/GB for domestic data).

 

First go to https://www.att.com/wireless/ and login to your wireless account.  Then click “My AT&T” and then continue to “Wireless”.  At this point, if you are on a family plan, make sure that you are on the phone number that you want to change the rate plan for.  Click “Manage Features”.

 

Now you are able to select the features that you want to have on your account (or wished you had at the beginning of this billing period).  Choose the features which you want, and click continue at the bottom.

 

This brings you to a new page where you are asked to “Select an Effective/Expiration date”.  Now you have the option of three choices:

 

1) Backdate to the beginning of your billing period

            This is really great in case you are already over your limit for your bill.  This is the primary situation where you can save a considerable amount of money. Say goodbye to cell phone overages!

 

2) Make effective today

            If you know you are about to start using your phone more, or going traveling starting today, this is the option for you.

 

3) Future date to the next billing period

            This option is great for those who are well prepared, and don’t want to worry about going over in the future.  Unfortunately, you cannot choose a specific date for the features to be enacted, so you either need to future date it to the next billing period or wait until you actually need the features and choose “Make effective today”

 
Click confirm on the bottom of the page and that’s it!  Now you will never need to worry about pricey cell phone overages again!

How to Check for Cell Phone Upgrade Eligibility

Check for Early Upgrade with your Carrier

 

Have you ever wondered if you could upgrade to a new phone?  Maybe you have had your phone for quite some time, but when you signed up to buy your last phone you had to sign a two year contract.  Many times AT&T and the other major cell phone carriers will allow you to upgrade your phone before your two year contract is up.  This is something that many people do not know, and can be very beneficial (See why upgrading your phone as often as possible is important).

 

Usually, it turns out that carriers will allow you to get a discount on your new phone every 12-18 months (rather than the 24 months which is agreed upon).  In fact, new iPhones have been released just about every 12 months (with the exception of the 4S which was released 16 months later) and AT&T has almost always allowed for people to upgrade to the new iPhone early, thus giving their customers a $400 discount every 12 months!

 

So if you are interested in upgrading to the newest and latest phone follow the instructions below.  And if you aren’t interested in upgrading phones, maybe you should read here and see how you could be wasting almost $20 a month.  You might as well upgrade, sell your phone and make a profit!

 

Luckily, checking to see if you are eligible for an upgrade is pretty simple!  Simply follow the instructions below.

 

For AT&T:

 

Grab your AT&T phone and dial:  *639# and press send.

After doing this you will receive a text message shortly after letting you know when you are eligible for an upgrade.

 

For Verizon:

 

Verizon is a little bit more complex, but still rather easy.

Simply go to their website here:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/eligible-upgrade.shtml

 

And type in your cell phone number and email address to find out if you are eligible for an upgrade with Verizon.

 

For Sprint:

 

Grab your Spring phone and dial : *2 and press send.

Press 1.

Enter your phone number.

Press 1 to check your upgrade eligibility.

 

 

For T-Mobile:

 

And currently for T-Mobile, it appears as though the only way to find out if you are eligible for an upgrade is to contact them directly, or use this third party website:

 

http://www.wirefly.com/upgrades/

Stop Wasting Money Every Month (on Your Cell Phone Bill)!

Stop Wasting Money!

Something tells me you are wasting money every month.  Not a lot, but I bet after you read this you could save anywhere from $5 to $20 a month on your cell phone bill.

 

It turns out most people are eligible for a discount with their mobile phone service provider, and they don’t even know it.  For example, any student from the University of California is entitled to a 10% discount with AT&T and possibly even more with the other carriers!  A simple 10% discount is very easy to find, and sometimes you can get a discount of up to 25%!  It all depends on your email address.  Do you have an edu email address?  Maybe you just started working at a new company and you have an email address with them?

 

It is pain-free and very easy to check for and add a discount to your service plan.  You can do it in about 5 minutes.  You don’t need to visit a store or even make any calls.  All that you need to do is check your email address for the discount and then login to your wireless account.

 

For AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, the process is amazingly simple.  All you need to do is go to their website and type in your email address (the one with your school, employer, or other organization).  If your email address doesn’t provide you with a discount, look to see if you have another email you could use.  For example, if you used your employer and there was no discount, try using your school, or other organization.

 

Here are the links to check your discounts (some of them tell you the discount percentage right away, while others require you to login to your account or pretend to start a new account first).  Start saving money today!

 

 

AT&T Wireless : https://www.wireless.att.com/business/authenticate/

 

Verizon Wireless : http://www.verizonwireless.com/employee-discounts-email-authentication.shtml

 

Sprint: http://sprint.p.delivery.net/m/p/nxt/dev/wdyw.asp

 

T-Mobile : https://my.t-mobile.com:443/Corporate/Default.aspx