I wrote this one back in 2009 when Cellphone Contracts were not as atrocious as they are now in Canada. Not to say they are better. They are just different.
When does my cellphone contract end has been a question that my wife had been asking me for a while. I had been too chicken to go to the Bell store near us to find out. I continued to mull around how exactly to figure this out. In the end, she changed to Telus as she got a better deal there.
When Can I get a Phone Upgrade?
Yes, this seems to be the magical information that is directly tied to when my cellphone contract ends.
How do I find this information out? Follow these steps:
- Log into your MyBell account (if you haven’t done this, do so, it is free)
- Go to the My Services Section and select See or Change Rates for your wireless account
- In my case since I have two phones it then asks for which phone number you want to look at thus you select the phone number you are interested in (or you may not see this screen at all).
- A page entitles My Wireless will come up on your screen. A section is titled My Phone, and you should have a link to Upgrade My Phone (click on it).
- Here is where the information you search lies.
On my page, there is a line that said:
If you wait until 2009/09/02 to upgrade you’ll be eligible for a credit of up to $200.00.
The only reason that Bell would give me that kind of credit is to retain my account, thus I have found when my contract expires with Bell. I get $200 if I renew for 3 years, how nice.
Caveat: Be careful with this methodology that you do not go too far and accidentally end er “renewing” your contractor- upgrading your phone!
I believe you still have to cancel the contract once it expires, else they will keep on billing you at the contract price.
DAvid
Very true, however, you have no penalties when you do cancel, which is the goal.
When it comes to cell phone plans, check out redflagdeals.com and search your provider.
My brother learned some tricks from there, I on the other hand used to work for sprint,nextel,at&t (my favorite us company) and the know the basics.
First be polite and fully explain your situation, try to find out if theres a cancellation dept or retention department, these departments normally make offers customer care cannot when a customer is not satifisfied.
So long as the phone your looking at isnt a pda, most times you can get it free. You can get money off a PDA … i got 100$ off my iphone from rogers but that was pretty hard to accomplish. As well they had a strict policy… they ended up crediting my montly service to offset the price of the phone.
My current plan 250 mins, nights @ 6pm, 100 long distance minutes, caller id, voicemail, rogers to rogers unlimited … for 30$ with tax monthly.
The amount we pay in canada for regular plans is insane. Not even close to the american base plans.