Verizon-branded Prepaid plans have price updates, changes to autopay and loyalty discounts

[Haas_Dave]

Source photo and info from this Reddit post.

It’s nice they updated pricing similar to total's new plans, but dropping the ability to stack AutoPay and Loyalty discounts is a major downgrade. The no-data Talk and Text plan went up in price (was $30/month previously), I bet to encourage moving to the 15GB plan or to migrate onto a new total account with the 5GB plan.

Similar plans on other carriers and even their Visible and total brand beats these easily. They also dropped the price on the unlimited plans, but they kept the garbage that is the Ultra Wideband up charge. When will VZW learn...

The AutoPay discount gets upped to 10/month, but you get to choose between the AutoPay discount or the loyalty discount. No more 15/month combined discounts.

Haven’t checked on eligibility with ACP yet. The old plans were eligible and Total does on all plans now (including legacy plans), so hopefully they kept ACP eligibility to these plans.

I expect this to be the last major “Prepaid” updates, as they are strongly pushing total in stores and online.


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[aaronwt]

If we are still on the old plans can we still get the old loyalty discounts? My account still shows my same discounts. $15 off the 15GB $50 plan. But I recently added my mother to my account since she had an old 3G phone on Verizon postpaid. She rarely used it and was being charged over $62 a month.

When I signed her up last week it showed $5 off after three months. And $5 more off after nine months. Which would have worked out to $10 off for loyalty and the $5 off for autopay. Bringing the cost of the 5GB $40 plan I put her on to $25 after nine months. So would she still be grandfathered into getting those loyalty discounts?

[mogulman1]

Saw they changed up the plans. No more $25 5gb plan after loyalty and autopay. They've had a $25 plan for a while. Before it was family plan discounts. Bummer.

$35 plan is now easier to get because you don't need loyalty discount. Just do autopay. They don't stack. Seems like the death of the loyalty discount.

[Haas_Dave]

If we are still on the old plans can we still get the old loyalty discounts? My account still shows my same discounts. $15 off the 15GB $50 plan. But I recently added my mother to my account since she had an old 3G phone on Verizon postpaid. She rarely used it and was being charged over $62 a month.

When I signed her up last week it showed $5 off after three months. And $5 more off after nine months. Which would have worked out to $10 off for loyalty and the $5 off for autopay. Bringing the cost of the 5GB $40 plan I put her on to $25 after nine months. So would she still be grandfathered into getting those loyalty discounts?

Yes. As long as the plan doesn't get changed, it is grandfathered and the combined loyalty and autopay discounts still apply.

These plans were effective after that new line from what you explain. Any new lines would use this pricing.

I haven't confirmed yet if mixing of the grandfathered plans and new plans on the same account works. I wouldn't see why not.

$35 plan is now easier to get because you don't need loyalty discount. Just do autopay. They don't stack. Seems like the death of the loyalty discount.

That is the only bright side of this, the other plans are less featured compared to Visible+ and total.

It honestly seems like the death of the Verizon brand of Prepaid.

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[taoman]

Hopefully they will grandfather existing prepaid plans that have loyalty discounts and autopay.

[zapjb]

...It honestly seems like the death of the Verizon brand of Prepaid...

Maybe that's the plan. To have Verizon postpaid only.

[bobdevnul]

Maybe that's the plan. To have Verizon postpaid only.

It appears to me that they are starting to position some of the Tracfone brands as their prepaid. They would probably like the Verizon Prepaid plans out of Verizon stores. My experience when we started a Vz Prepaid plan in a Vz store was that they really didn't want anything to do with it.

The sales slime definitely wasn't happy to spend an hour with us to buy a $250 phone and $25/month plan with no insurance or accessories. They weren't outright uncooperative, but I could tell that the didn't want to.

I can't say that I blame the sales people. Carrier stores put extreme demands on the sales people with unreasonable quotas to get their bonuses. Tying them up for an hour was 12% of shift for next to nothing in commission or toward their quotas.

Basically, if you don't want to buy a $1000 5G phone and the top of the line plan, insurance, and accessories they want you to just go away. Is this true all the time everywhere? Probably not, but I believe the tendency is there.

[NCTed]

Basically, if you don't want to buy a $1000 5G phone and the top of the line plan, insurance, and accessories they want you to just go away. Is this true all the time everywhere? Probably not, but I believe the tendency is there.

That has been my experience with the added observation that they really didn't want to help anyone even if they were dropping a truckload of money on phones and service.

[clonehappy]

Off topic, but I have no idea why any phone company needs stores at all. Phones and service should be completely decoupled from each other at this point.

Besides, everyone argues with me that the telcos make no money off of handset and accessory sales. I guess the 3 year “not a contracts” make up for all the loss and overhead of running physical stores.

If you want a phone, it should be as simple as going to an Apple store or Best Buy and buying a phone and a SIM card for whatever carrier you want and going on your way.

There is too much money to be made in artificial lock-in, carrier locking, VoLTE whitelists and all the nonsense to ever allow things to just work the way they should, however. Especially in the case of Verizon, if you aren’t a postpaid customer with at least a $350 a month bill, don’t bother setting foot in the door.


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[jmsilver99]

So how does the $35 compare to Visible? I have been on the legacy Visible plan and since they came out with the new plans my service has gotten much worse. I was thinking of switching to the new $30 plan but I have read about some headaches plus I am using a N20 Ultra and here it requires some manual APN config and not everything works.

I dont think I use more than 15gb/mo. What I care most about is reliability and Visible has not provided that. I am not sure if VZW PPD will be better.

[aaronwt]

Off topic, but I have no idea why any phone company needs stores at all. Phones and service should be completely decoupled from each other at this point.

Besides, everyone argues with me that the telcos make no money off of handset and accessory sales. I guess the 3 year “not a contracts” make up for all the loss and overhead of running physical stores.

If you want a phone, it should be as simple as going to an Apple store or Best Buy and buying a phone and a SIM card for whatever carrier you want and going on your way.

There is too much money to be made in artificial lock-in, carrier locking, VoLTE whitelists and all the nonsense to ever allow things to just work the way they should, however. Especially in the case of Verizon, if you aren’t a postpaid customer with at least a $350 a month bill, don’t bother setting foot in the door.


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It already is that way. You can do that or you can also go to the phone store. It's been many years since I've been in a Verizon store. And I get a new Galaxy S phone every year or two. There is no need for me to go to the store. But there are certainly many people who feel more comfortable doing that.

I think the last time I was in a Verizon Wireless store was when I first switched from Verizon Postpaid to Verizon Prepaid.

My $29.93, out of pocket, each month I pay for my 15GB plan on prepaid is a good deal. I just use auto pay for the discount. And also carry a balance from the refill pins I get at Target. And I save 14.5% on the refill pins at Target by getting a few hundred dollars worth when they have 10% off sales. And also use my Target Redcard for the purchase. Which gives an extra 5% off. Which works out to 14.5% off the face value of the refill pin.

[aaronwt]

So how does the $35 compare to Visible? I have been on the legacy Visible plan and since they came out with the new plans my service has gotten much worse. I was thinking of switching to the new $30 plan but I have read about some headaches plus I am using a N20 Ultra and here it requires some manual APN config and not everything works.

I dont think I use more than 15gb/mo. What I care most about is reliability and Visible has not provided that. I am not sure if VZW PPD will be better.

It really depends on your area. In my area, the DC area, my experience on Verizon prepaid has been identical to my Verizon postpaid experience. I still get the same 200 Mb/s download speeds, still have excellent coverage, etc.

[cbreze]

Glad I came across this thread. I've been enjoying unlimited talk and text and 5 GB data for the past several months at $25 per month due to the wonderful discounts and auto pay. It looks like that plan is going away so I will want to hang on to it tightly I think as long as it remains grandfathered in. At some point, if they revoke it, I shall probably look elsewhere. I have another line on mint mobile that is $16.66 per month for basically the same deal and data only on T-Mobile network. Was thinking of switching to that to save even more money but I think I will leave that as my plan. B in case this Verizon plan gets taken away.

[jmsilver99]

Maybe that's the plan. To have Verizon postpaid only.

$35 for 15gb does not seem bad compared to having to wait for loyalty to kick in

[Vicpdx17]

$35 for 15gb does not seem bad compared to having to wait for loyalty to kick in

Exactly, AT&T prepaid offers 16GB for $25 IF you pay for a year in advance or 15GB for $40 with auto pay so Technically Verizon is $5 cheaper now.

One thing I can say is that eSim ports are dangerous right now, if you pick bring your own number under a new prepaid activation and the original port fails. Get ready for your number to be stuck in Limbo and no Account created so that you cant start service.