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T-Mobile's new seasonal suspension charge makes it a pointless option
- T-Mobile will now charge users their full monthly plan rate during a seasonal suspension.
- Prior to the October 10 policy change, customers paid only $10 per month during these voluntary periods of suspension.
- With no savings to be made by invoking a seasonal suspension, it isn’t clear what benefit the option still has to users.
Not everyone needs their pricey phone plan all year round, which is why some carriers allow you to freeze or suspend your plan for limited periods — maybe the line is tied to seasonal work you do, or you plan to travel where you won’t need a phone for months on end. The idea is that you keep your line, but it’s not active during a specific timeframe, with the cost temporarily reduced to reflect this. If that sounds reasonable to you, you’ll be as baffled as we are to find out that T-Mobile now wants to charge you full price on your plan during a seasonal suspension.
Disgruntled T-Mobile subscriber and Reddit user toyodaforever took to the site to point out the policy change, as spotted by Phone Arena. There, they reveal that, as of October 10, “seasonal suspensions will now be charged the full monthly recurring charge.”
This is confirmed on the account suspensions section of the provider’s support pages. Under the seasonal suspensions heading, it states, “The account will be billed the plan’s regular monthly charge, including any data add-ons or additional features.” T-Mobile previously allowed users to reduce their monthly charge to just $10 during such voluntary suspensions.
It's a risky test of consumer loyalty.
Other than anger at the change, many responses to the Reddit thread posed the same question you’re probably asking: If you can’t save money, then what’s the point in suspending your plan at all?
T-Mobile clearly benefits from users not consuming the network’s resources when they are out of the country or otherwise not in need of the plan. A rate reduction was also a good way to retain customers who might otherwise cancel their subscriptions. However, the provider appears to have decided that it shouldn’t offer anything in return.
Contributors to the Reddit thread suggested that the change would encourage them to port their number to a different provider during extended stays abroad. One pointed out that this might forfeit a grandfathered plan rate that couldn’t then be obtained if returning to T-Mobile. We’ve reached out to the carrier to try and gain some insight into why subscribers might want to take advantage of this new, full-priced seasonal suspension. We’ll update this post if we hear anything back.
Whatever the carrier’s reasons, it’s a risky test of consumer loyalty to make a bit of extra money. It will be interesting to see if the seasonal suspension option even exists in a few months if there is now no discernable incentive for the customer.