I thought I would share some of the experiences I've had with AT&T real quick. AT&T has been my cell phone service provider for awhile now. Paritially because I like their network coverge in the places I'm at. Partly because I can work out deals with them that work for my family. We went into the AT&T store to upgrade our phones. We were offered the Next plan which is pretty common if you go into the store. I told the sales person that I'm not interested in paying anymore than I already am. At the time my deals had run up and I was there to test the waters of a face to face deal. Sometimes I get better results when someone Sees and talks to me face to face when it comes to discounts. After being asked if I wanted to join Next, and shooting him down, he went on to figure out what phones we wanted. We were prepared to be a larger sum of money. Two iPhones is not cheap but we like them and they last quite a while. He went on with his upsale routine. Try to get us to get larger upgrades then what we want. He then said something along the lines of getting us on Next again. I suddenly saw an opening in my frugal mind. I'm not sure if he got some bones tossed his way for selling the plan or if he was rewarded with something else, but I continued to tell him I'm not interested in a monthly lease style plan, though I could really care less, I'm after the deal. The way I look at it, if you pay a lease plan instead of an up front cost the difference is that you give the phone back instead of sell the phone. The House always win. You're going to pay for the phone so whether its now and sell it later to make back the money to buy new phones or just pay monthly and trade it in, the house always wins. Again, we talked plans and phones. He finally went to go talk to his manager and we ended up with the AT&T Next plan not costing anything at all. On our bill there's a charge and credit for it underneath the charge. With a plan that was cheaper than before and a straight 100 bucks to initiate the deal I was very happy. Maybe this will help you all find some better deals out there, especially if you have families like I do.
