Multiple Lines of Play More: Change account owner line but retain Disney Bundle for free?

[magikarp]

Hey everyone,

Just wondering if anyone else has experience with the situation I find myself in regarding my plan. I currently have two lines, both on the 5G Play More plan. My personal line is the "account owner". As a result of being on Play More, I have the free Disney Bundle perk, which is no longer offered on current plans (I believe on current plans it costs an additional $10 per month).

My phone is on its way out, and I see there are upgrade offers for new phones, however, a condition of getting these offers is "upgrading" the line getting the phone to the Ultimate Unlimited plan. However, it seems that not all lines need to have the same plan, and I've been told the other line can remain on Play More, and only mine (the account owner, as it happens) will have to change to Ultimate Unlimited. Meaning I switch my line to Ultimate Unlimited, get a phone discount, and leave the remaining line on 5G Play More.

Representatives have indicated that, since the other line will remain on Play More, our Disney Bundle perk will be unaffected, and we will continue to receive free Disney, which is an "account level" benefit, managed through my account as the account owner. In effect, they say that as long as one line on the account has the Play More plan, the old perk still applies. They said no action will be required on my part - no login changes to another email address, etc. It will just work. This sounds great, but I'm skeptical, based on my prior dealings with telecom companies, having received - and heard of others who received - misinformation from poorly informed representatives or reps just looking to make a sale. This is complicated by the fact that I am leaving a grandfathered plan, so once I leave it, regardless of what happens, I won't be allowed to change back.

So I decided to ask here: does anyone have experience "partially" switching an account from Play More, and retaining the perk in the way described here? If so, I would love to hear about it, and if you ran into any issues. Thanks in advance for any insight or experience anyone can provide.

[SynthpopAddict]

If the other line is using the same login credentials to access the Disney streaming services, then it shouldn't be a problem to use the other line with the legacy plan to access your Disney benefits.  But if the lines have different logins altogether, then I see a potential problem with Disney not working if you change your Account Owner line to a current plan.  I've read of instances where people switched to the latest plans and then the system wants to keep logging them in under the old legacy plan somehow, which of course doesn't work.

If your phone is dying, what about financing a new phone separately where it's not involved in a device contract through Verizon?  Then you can keep your current service plan and just have a new phone on it.  The big manufacturers all have deals of their own if you go to their websites.

[magikarp]

That's definitely where the uncertainty comes from; it's not really clear - to me, anyway - how Disney/Hulu knows to bill me at the lower rate. Is it because of the email address? There's a Verizon reference number that I assume has something to do with it, but haven't gotten a clear answer from anybody at any company over how exactly it all works; I'm guessing they don't actually know.

But yes, ordering through a company direct is also an option. I honestly assumed I'd have to buy a phone outright, and I can, if need be, but getting $1,000 off is worth a little investigating and digging, so here I am. Thanks for the thought, though. I'm sure I'm not the first person in this situation. If I do end up going through with it, I'll certainly post my experience in case somebody else like me comes along, but I'm going to hold off for a bit.

[SynthpopAddict]

Disney/Hulu is not billing you directly for their service when you have it through 5G Play More; Verizon is charging you and the money goes to Disney via Verizon later. (I can attest to this personally because I have Hulu independently and when I looked into upgrading things, the first thing Hulu's system asked me was, "How are you paying for your service", and there's all kinds of options including assorted mobile carriers.)

The problems come in when you switch plans or port out of Verizon, because it appears that perks like these are in a different part of the system than the main accounts.  What happens is the perks get "orphaned" and there's not a way to get back into that part of the system because the access is tied to your main account login.  But if all the lines in your account are using one login for Disney, then I'd think changing only one line to a new plan shouldn't mess things up (hopefully).

[magikarp]

That's true - it's complicated further in my case since I'm paying for add-ons/no ads on Hulu, so I do have a charge directly from Hulu, but it's knocked down because of the Verizon credit.

I definitely don't love all of this being tied together in opaque ways, but nothing to do but try and navigate it. I do think that, even if I did get screwed out of the Play More free bundle, we could mitigate it by dropping the other line to Unlimited Plus, which would be a $2 difference in bill... but $1,000 off a phone, so... we'd only start to lose money in about 40+ years... but, hey, I'm still hoping to save the $2 on principle.

Thanks for the thoughts, though, I appreciate the response. I'll see if anything shakes out on this but if not, probably end up just getting the S25 and calling it a day. Considering the Pixel 9 but just not sure there's enough value there for me when they're going to be about the same price after discounts. Either will be a big jump from my old S20, though.

[magikarp · Accepted solution]

I just wanted to follow up here. I did proceed to change my plan, leaving the other line no Play More, and I have seemingly had no change to my services or billing, and the streaming platforms continue to work as normal. The free bundle perk is also still listed in my account as an account-level benefit.

So it sounds like the representatives were correct. For anyone in the same situation, you should be able to change just one plan without losing your grandfathered free Disney Bundle.

At least as long as it's continued to be offered, anyway! Thanks for the responses.