A couple years ago, I started working at a new job that required me to spend a LOT of time on my cellphone while driving around to customer sites. I got a couple huge phone bills for going over on my minutes, before I called Verizon to see about buying a bigger plan. Frustratingly, they told me I couldn’t even buy a plan with more than 1200 minutes a month or so on it (may have been 1100 or 1300 actually — I forget now, but something in that neighborhood).

I was really hoping for something like 1500-1600 minutes, because any less, and I could still potentially go over.

I pointed out to them that other carriers like Sprint offered plans where if you exceeded your monthly allotment, you’d just automatically be billed some nominal fee and have another few hundred minutes added that month - and asked if they didn’t have *anything* remotely similar I could purchase.

I was told, flat out, no. I pointed out how long I’d been a faithful customer (with no late payments, ever!), and the rep. did look me up and said “Wow! You HAVE been with us a LONG time.” — but they still had nothing to offer me. (Actually, after a little more complaining, they made some “concession” of adding a free extra 100 minutes a month to my plan, which wouldn’t have solved my problem.)

I ended up having to break my contract (a family plan with 2 phones, so I got billed over $325 in termination fees) - but even THAT was better than a couple more months of bills for “overages”!

It’s just like car insurance. Loyalty doesn’t pay. In fact, what pays is constant research and hopping around whenever it’s to your financial advantage to do so. Seems really backwards, but I guess that’s what happens when companies focus on the “short term” instead of the “long run”.