I didn’t need a phone and yet I ended up getting one, almost two. Here are the stories.
Google Fi
Google has been running some good deals around Thanksgiving. There was a $200 off and $200 credit when you buy a Pixel phone. However, I went for Wednesday’s deal of get the phone’s price back in gift cards. I got a $900 phone and it came to $975 after tax. There was an Amex Offer which gives me $100 back. You have to transfer an existing line and keep the plan active for 4 months at a service cost $20/month plus $10/GB of data. After the period I cancel or do whatever I want. With deals like this it is important to read all the conditions because not qualifying is going to blow all your savings.
I will get $900 in gift cards plus a Pixel 3 XL for $955 ($975 – $100 + $80). It was too good a deal to pass up and my wife will love taking pictures with her iPhone XS Max and comparing it to the Pixel 3 XL.
Metro
Metro, formerly Metro PCS, had a sale for a $49 iPhone and free AirPods. The only restriction is to keep the $50 service for a month. So for a $100 I could get AirPods and then sell the phone for $150. This would be a similar amount of work for a $200 return.
Other providers
I saw T-Mobile giving away an Apple Watch in bill credits for signing up. Then you already read about my Sprint story. Essentially, there are offers left and right for switching service, so check them out and you can probably get a great discount. However, if you already have an affordable plan then maybe the best thing to do is to do nothing.
Conclusion
Add Google Fi to the growing list of phone providers I have used. I imagine the Google deal will probably net me $600 in value which is good for being able to do everything from my computer in a couple hours. For the Metro deal I would have needed to go into the store and sort everything out. Fortunately neither would be too inconvenient as my work phone is my primary device and my other devices are available to seize upon deals.