My wife and I need to upgrade our phones and I have been trying to seek a deal that would incentivize me to remain a Verizon customer. I am not finding any.
We have (2) iPhone 6S's which have no trade in value. We didn't upgrade them because they simply worked well for a long time and we had no need. I also have an iPad Pro which is acting glitchy from heavy use. Some people act like we were trying to get one over on the carrier, but actually we just never thought about it.
Our existing plan is no longer offered. It is called the "Big" or "Large" Plan and it offers 8 GB and its less expensive than any existing Ultimate Plan. For as many years as I can recall we have used very little data. Almost comically little. Like 1/16th of the available data for our individual lines. I work from home but I like having mobile devices, but I draw on my home Wi-Fi which is fast and plentiful. My wife works in a hospital (not a first responder or nurse but she does work with patients), so she uses the hospital Wi-Fi. I know Verizon wants us to upgrade our plan, but we really don't need the additional data. I was hoping because we're over 55 and have been customers for 15.5 years that we could get a loyalty discount to offset the Ultimate Plan cost.
I was also hoping we could get nice new phones. New customers are being offered IPhone 15 Pros, iPads, and Watches. There are free phones available to us, but only with a pricy plans that we don't need and they're older models. Why does a new customer get a top of the line phone but my 15 years of business gets me an iPhone 13?
I am not trying to sound petulant or like I'm stamping my feet, but I'm not seeing a good reason not to switch to a competitor. They have wall-to-wall coverage in my region. We don't travel to remote areas practically ever. Data throttling is not really a boogeyman or threat to us, because we're using our Wi-Fi so much. Plus they offer a discount for people over 55 that would let us essentially keep our existing pricing. That is, their plans aren't that much better but with the over 55 discount it works out to no worse. than we have. Their phones aren't free, but they're deeply discounted. Cheaper than buying out-of-pocket from a retail store.
Alternatively I could buy unlocked phones from a retail store anyway and NEVER ever change my Verizon plan. That would still be better than what Verizon is offering.
I have tried to talk to representatives on the Verizon Mobile site and they couldn't provide any incentive. I tried to call customer service and this guy I got didn't listen to my issues. He just talked over me. I asked for a loyalty reward and he said my loyalty reward was an offer that was WORSE than the people on Verizon's customer service chat gave me a few hours earlier. I'm not angry, they were all polite people.. but like the subject line says, I don't know why I should remain a customer.
I thought I would be at least good for a loyalty discount to offset the Ultimate Plan, and maybe a better device discount.
We're going to visit another carrier tomorrow. If there are any real Verizon Support staff who can help before then, I sure would appreciate it.
