Cell Phone Plan Perks That Could Save You Money

Cell phone carriers desperately want you to choose them instead of the competition, so most offer perks to incentivize you to sign up. For example, the AT&T Unlimited Elite plan gives you a free HBO Max subscription, and T-Mobile Magenta unlimited plans will give you a Netflix subscription.

In most cases, you’ll need to spring for one of the top-tier unlimited plans from a carrier to get the best perks. If you already pay for the service you’ll get for free with your wireless plan, you can save money by bundling everything into your cell phone plan.

Here’s an overview of the best perks you can get with different unlimited plans:

You only start getting decent perks from AT&T when you opt for the Unlimited Extra or Unlimited Elite cell phone plans. Check out the basic details for those two plans below:

The Unlimited Extra plan hooks you up with unlimited talk, text, and data, and 15 GB of mobile hotspot data, but the perks basically end there. For $10 a month more, the Unlimited Elite plan gets you an HBO Max subscription and 40 GB of mobile hotspot data, along with improved wireless streaming quality. Considering HBO Max on its own costs $15.99/month, it’s an easy choice to upgrade to the Unlimited Elite if you like shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, Game of Thrones, and Euphoria.

Both Magenta unlimited plans from T-Mobile give you a free Netflix subscription, but you need to have two or more lines bundled together to get it. The only exception to the rule is a single Magenta MAX line, which still gets you a free Netflix basic account.

The T-Mobile basic Magenta plan gives you a basic Netflix subscription, which only allows you to stream on a single screen at time in standard-definition quality. The irony of the situation is that you need to get two T-Mobile Magenta lines together to get a single Netflix stream. Hopefully you and your wireless partner both like streaming the same stuff!

If the standard Netflix subscription won’t work for you, T-Mobile will cover up to $8.99 towards any other Netflix subscription you want. With that deduction, you would only pay $5 a month for a Netflix Standard account or $9 for a Netflix Premium account.

Magenta MAX automatically hooks you up with the basic Netflix subscription if you just have one line active at a time, or you can get a free standard Netflix subscription with two or more Magenta MAX lines. The Netflix Standard subscription values at $13.99/month, which means you can upgrade to Netflix Premium and get that much off your subscription, bringing the premium plan down to $5 per month.

Verizon specializes in the Disney bundle perk that gives you free subscriptions to Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu (13.99/month value). On top of that, Verizon unlimited plans also can get you a free subscription to Apple Music ($9.99/month value). Verizon cell phone plans generally cost more than what you find from AT&T and T-Mobile, but perks can certainly help justify the price.

To get all the perks possible from Verizon, you’ll need to pay $90/month for your cell phone plan (which is a lot). All the free perks give you a combined value of $23.98/month, but when you include the 50 GB of mobile hotspot data, 600 GB of cloud storage, and excellent wireless coverage, the price becomes much more palatable.

Oh, you also get a bunch of year-long free trials with the Verizon 5G Get More plan, including Discovery+, Apple Arcade, and Google Play Pass.

If the 5G Get More Plan is too much for your blood (we don’t blame you), Verizon splits its perks between the 5G Do More and Play More unlimited plans. The 5G Play More plan still gets you the Disney bundle and Apple Music subscriptions, but doesn’t come with cloud storage. The 5G Do More plan only gives you a six-month subscription to Disney streaming services, but does give you all that cloud storage.

Metro by T-Mobile is a prepaid carrier that offers affordable cell phone plans on T-Mobile’s network. Most prepaid carriers don’t offer much in the way of perks, but Metro bucks that trend and gives you an Amazon Prime subscription with your unlimited plan.

Amazon Prime costs $139 per year, and you can just forget about that cost when you sign up for the $60 Metro by T-Mobile plan. Getting unlimited talk, text, and data, along with a free Amazon Prime subscription for less than $60 per month makes for a pretty solid deal. With that free Amazon Prime subscription, you can order items off Amazon without paying for shipping, and you get access to Amazon Prime’s streaming catalog.