‘My Two Cents’ On The Incredible Sprint SERO Cell Phone Plan!
By CHM on Feb 7, 2008 in My Two Cents
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I ended Tuesday’s post by letting you know that I paid the termination fee of $175 to AT&T (my current provider) in order to switch to the Sprint SERO cell phone plan.
If it wasn’t for the incredible deal that I received from Sprint, along with the heavily discounted price on the new phone that comes with it, I never would have done this.
Let’s take a look back and see how I got to this point.
On January 21st, I read a post on My Dollar Plan about the Sprint SERO deal with the unlimited data plan. The unlimited data plan immediately piqued my interest because I need access to emails and instant messaging real bad.
With my current plan I was paying $85 All in w/o any data plan. I called up AT&T and they told me it would cost an additional $40 a month to add the unlimited data plan.
(The following are excerpts from Madison’s article followed by ‘My Two Cents’.)
I signed up for the incredible SERO plan! Nickel gave great step-by-step directions for the SERO plan and additional discounts.
Actually, click on the link in the above paragraph to see a detailed step by step article on how to take advantage of the Sprint SERO (Sprint Employee Referral Offer). Madison found out about this deal from Five Cent Nickel’s blog.
Clever Guerrilla Marketing?
The reason this SERO offer is so unique is because it was originally meant as an exclusive offer for friends and family of Sprint employees or so they say. But I’m highly skeptical of that fact.
To me, it seems more like a brilliantly thought up viral marketing campaign that has been slowly spreading- via word of mouth- for almost 3 years now. All you need in order to sign up is the email address of a current Sprint employee, i.e. john.doe@sprint.com. If you ask me, that’s extremely lax for something that was supposed to be an exclusive deal.
My first attempt
I actually called up Sprint, spoke to a customer service rep. and told her I wanted to take advantage of the SERO plan. She asked me for the employee referral email address. I gave her the address that’s been floating around all over the internet - savings@sprintemi.com. She immediately told me that was no longer a valid address and we soon parted ways.
If you fail, try try again
I then went on to the Sprint website and decided to try and sign up that way, without talking to a human being. It worked like a charm, within 10 minutes I was all set with the Sprint SERO plan. I found that kind of strange, over the phone I was denied, but had no problem signing up over the internet. I think it further confirms my suspicions of Sprint waging a clever guerrilla-like online marketing campaign.
$30 per month for 500 minutes, Unlimited Sprint Mobile to Mobile, Unlimited Nationwide long distance, Voicemail, Call Waiting, and Caller ID, Unlimited Nights & Weekends starting at 7pm, Free text messaging… Unlimited data plan… this is what we really wanted!
You have 3 different plans to choose from, Madison choose the 500 minute plan. I choose the 1250 Anytime minutes and everything else was the same, as you see listed in the paragraph above. For the very affordable price of $49.99 I received the whole kit and kaboodle; an incredible deal in my eyes.
A cost comparison
I didn’t price it out dollar for dollar versus my current provider, but I estimate I’ll be saving approximately between $75-$100 a month! That’s huge.
You can see why I was willing to pay the $175 termination fee to get out of my existing AT&T contract. In less than 2 months time I’ll make up the termination cost, and then the real monthly savings begin, I’m very excited about that.
The Mogul HTC turned on its side.
On top of that, I choose the Mogul HTC which has a beautiful wide screen and a sleek pullout keyboard for easy typing. It normally retails for $549, but with the Sprint 2 year deal and the $100 mail in rebate, it’s going to run me $249. At the same time, I will be selling my Treo 750 on eBay for almost the same price (at least that’s what comparable Treo’s are currently going for on eBay.)
In conclusion
Paying the termination fees was well worth it for me. If I had upgraded to a comparable plan with my current provider it would have cost me an arm and a leg. I estimate that my yearly cost savings with the Sprint SERO plan will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $850, not too shabby. Oh, and I got to keep my phone number which was a nice added bonus.
I think I’m starting to get the hang of this frugality thing…
(Part 3 in this series… How I cut my cable bill in half, will be airing on Monday. )
Tags: Sprint SERO plan
Mrs. Micah | Feb 7, 2008 | Reply
Dangit all. Wow. Do they have any family-plan like options? I was paying about $85 for my own plan, then we managed to get a family plan for about $85…which isn’t so bad, though we don’t have a data plan. And two $40s would be about $80 plus fees and other stuff…which would make it more. Hmm.
I’m not ready to get out of the old plan, but I might switch when expiration time looms near.
CHM | Feb 7, 2008 | Reply
Hi Mrs. Micah,
I did not ask about the family plan.
I remember reading that the SERO plan is only available on an individual basis. I just went back and re-read Madison and Nickel’s articles to see if it was in there, but it wasn’t. It may have been on the Sprint site.
rickshaw | Feb 7, 2008 | Reply
I have also heard of instances where providers are willing to pay your termination fees in order to sign you up.
Were you able to keep your number?
CHM | Feb 7, 2008 | Reply
Yes I was able to keep my number, in the process of wrapping up the porting of my number right now. Have the phone in my possession, just need to activate it.
Patrick | Feb 7, 2008 | Reply
I love the SERO plan - I needed the data plan which was why I got it. I got the Moto Q9C, which isn’t as flashy as the Mogul, but it works for me.
CHM | Feb 8, 2008 | Reply
Patrick, we should look into some kind of SERO affiliate program, lol.
keith | Feb 21, 2008 | Reply
I think Sprint really sucks. When they took over NEXTEL my problems started. Billing is really a problem, we had to call customer service every month (for over a year) to try to get our bill corrected, it was a nightmare. To this date my bill is still wrong. I went through all the channels but they still could not get it right. I finally closed my account and now they want to charge me more for closing account early. Do yourself a favor and don’t get caught up with a flashy phone when service really sucks.
Al | Mar 3, 2008 | Reply
To obtain a valid Sprint/Nextel employee email address,you must stop by a Sprint retail store,(not an authorized store i.e. starcomm ,BJs etc.)and inquire about anything related to Sprint/Nextel. Then ask the sales rep for their business card,their VALID email address is printed right on the bottom.As far as I know when you sign up online,they never verify that the sales rep invited you for the SERO plans. Hopes this helps.
Al | Mar 3, 2008 | Reply
Keith if your still having trouble with Sprint, call Executive Customer Service at 703.433.4401. They should be able to help solve your problems.
CHM | Mar 3, 2008 | Reply
Hey Al,
Thanks for dropping by. If you’re going to go the route of getting an employee’s name and using it… you can just type in something like ‘Sprint executive’ in Google, and I’m sure you’d find what you’re looking for.
Al | Mar 4, 2008 | Reply
Hey CHM, You’re correct,that way would be easier. Also found out you can use http://www.access@sprintemi.com as well.I don’t know how long it will last,but as soon as one vanishes another one appears. Love your site! I’m turning 40 soon,and I’d like to learn how to start either a roth IRA or a roth 401k. I have a 401k through my job,but it sucks big time.
fivecentnickel.com | Mar 12, 2008 | Reply
I’m late to the party on this one, but I thought I’d chime in on the Family Plan question. The short answer is no, they don’t have family plans. My wife and I used to have a family plan with two lines. When we made the jump to SERO, we had to set up two different plans. Still, we came out way ahead (though I *have* thought about the implications a few years down the road when our kids want cell phones).
CHM | Mar 12, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for dropping by nickel, I switched to the SERO deal after reading it on Patrick’s blog, he read it on Madison’s blog after she read it on yours. You started the whole chain reaction and I’m glad it trickled down.
I’ve been very happy with my Sprint plan so far, although I still haven’t fully figured out all the different things my phone can do.
shelia | Apr 25, 2008 | Reply
Does anyone know the difeerance between the 99.99 SimplyEverything and the Sero 1250 for 49.99. Do you get all the same things just are limited to 1250 minutes a month?Does sprint tv and music part of data plan?
Vickie | May 27, 2008 | Reply
After all the fees and such, how much is it really per month for the 500 minute plan?
Debbie | Jul 7, 2008 | Reply
The 500 minute plan is $33.89 per month.
The price is really good, however, I have had poor luck with Sprint Customer Service and am almost 1 year into my 2 year plan.
Marie-Nathalie | Dec 28, 2008 | Reply
Do you know if sprint do a plan for the fallowing: Unlimited incoming - 3000 to 5000 minutes outgoing - long distance including Canada, USA - sprint to sprint unlimited - and if someone can get me a valid sprint employee email address. Because I live in Canada so it would be hard for me to drop to some store. Thank you.
Marie-Nathalie | Dec 28, 2008 | Reply
Do you know if sprint do a plan for the fallowing: Unlimited incoming - 3000 to 5000 minutes outgoing - long distance including Canada, USA - sprint to sprint unlimited? And if someone can get me a valid sprint employee email address? Because I live in Canada so it would be hard for me to drop to some store. Thank you.
P.S. I have a website that you can call up to 32 countries unlimited 24/7 with your cell phone for a maximum of 30$ per month. You will never pay long distance to any country that you’re calling.
If you don’t have unlimited outgoing but do have Circle of friends or unlimited incoming plan, my service will help you to get unlimited circle of friends by registering my access number then you can call 24/7 anybody, anywhere up to 32 countries; For unlimited incoming plan you will have access to unlimited outgoing including long distance to up to 32 countries.
Here is my site http://www.cell-o.ca refer 10 friends get 3 free months.