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!