I Finally Broke Down - Sprint SERO Plan Purchase

Posted by Mr. B
February 17, 2008

For the last few years my wife and I have successfully resisted the call of cellular phones. I even wrote about it last year, bragging about how I consistently save $780 a year.

Feeling Trapped

Times change, and sometimes we need to adapt to new conditions. Recently I was away on a job interview, and my two flights were severely delayed due to bad weather. While sitting in the Chicago airport waiting for my connection to Cleveland, I felt completely and utterly isolated. I could not call my wife, nor could I contact my potential employer to let them know my status. Oh, and good luck finding a pay phone in most airports now. I felt trapped.

Eventually, I made friends with a fellow traveler, and he let me briefly borrow his Blackberry. Eventually I made it to Cleveland, albeit seven hours later than scheduled. After a couple hours of sleep, I had an all-day interview. It went well, by the way. Thank goodness I’m still pretty young and resilient.

The Realization

The long delays gave me plenty of time to ponder my lack of cell phone, and I came to the realization that I will probably be in many more situations like this over the next few years. Since I’m finishing my doctorate and applying for a number of jobs, I hope to have several interviews over the next few years as I look for my ideal university/location. Plus, my wife will be away at a number of conferences in the near future, so the same reasoning applies for her as well.

The thought of going through another ordeal like I just experienced sans cell phone is unbearable. I made it back into town on Valentine’s Day. Happy Valentine’s Day, honey. Let’s get cell phones! :-)

The Plan

Of course, I didn’t just run out and buy the first phone plan that I found. My wife and I previously had Cingular service years ago, and were singularly dissatisfied with them. So, the AT&T/Cingular/SBC/Bellsouth/etc monstrosity was out of the equation for us.

After reading a number of forums and blogs, I discovered the Sprint SERO plan. Formerly known as the Sprint Employee Referral Offer, it recently changed its name to the Sprint Exclusive Referral Offer. Same plan, slightly different name.

For $30 a month, I’m getting:

There’s A LOT of discussion about the Sprint SERO plan online. If you are interested in detailed reading, you can start with the threads at HowardForums and at Fatwallet.

How to Order

To order, visit the Sprint SERO site in Internet Explorer. I hate IE as much as the next person, but ordering the plan does not currently work in Firefox or Safari. Grrr!

For the e-mail address, type savings@sprintemi.com. Again, this only works currently in IE. You may need to enter your ZIP code to check for availability.

moto-q.pngChoose a phone. I opted for the MOTO Q by Motorola because I liked the bigger screen and the QWERTY keypad. Since the plan has unlimited data, I might as well access it easily.

When I ordered the phone a couple days ago, it was $80 (after rebate). Now, it’s $50. Since my phone has not yet shipped, I’m going to call them and ask nicely if they can give me the cheaper price. We’ll see if it works. :-)

Now that my wife and I are both going to have cell phones, I’m going to start looking into getting rid of our landline. From what I’ve already been reading, it looks to be more difficult than I originally imagined. I currently have AT&T for landline/DSL, and I don’t imagine that they will easily cancel our phone service.

Time to start researching.

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