Black Friday Special ideas?

[Scamp]

Could they offer a 4G special or 5G at $29.00 for 10gb to encourage some of us off the 3G network ?

eEspecially since the current deal $34.00 for 20Gb

[DennyCrane]

@Savivi Agreed. But from a business perspective there isn't a direct correlation of cost per GB. Many of us don't need 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 GB etc, but we do need more than 1GB.

They just care about increasing ARPU, and they do that by adding incentives to higher spend plans, including faster data, more data, and in some cases US roaming. I personally don't need anywhere near the 40GB I get on my Canada/US plan, but I'm willing to pay a bit of a premium for the US roaming component. Would I love a $40 or $45 US plan with less data, sure. Is that likely to happen? Maybe, but I doubt it (and let's not get into the Quebec conversation again). PM has clearly decided that $50 is the entry point to US plans outside of Quebec; so whether they include 10GB, 40GB, or 100GB really makes no difference. The entry point is still what it is. The extra data is just extra incentive that doesn't really cost them much to provide, but helps to make the higher spend plans more marketable.

Having said all this, what do I know. If you told me a year ago that this is what we'd be paying today I would have asked you for whatever it was you were on. And now look where we are!

[Savivi]

To be honest, 20G is little bit too much for me. I would prefer a cheaper plan instead of offering me a large data bucket.

[will13am]

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@DennyCrane wrote:

Hopefully this isn't it. The $34/20GB is a great deal, but they launched it so early I was hoping for more.

 

 

 

 

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I sense this is it.  Putting perspective on how far we have gone this year, it is hard to expect much more juice we can squeeze out of this carrier brand.  At the start of the year I was on $120/12GB/90 day plan and I will end the year on a $34/20GB unlimited throttled data plan.  

[DennyCrane]

Hopefully this isn't it. The $34/20GB is a great deal, but they launched it so early I was hoping for more.

 

 

 

 

[will13am]

I don't expect any deals in the low end of the food chain.  People need to come to terms that all account have a base cost of doing business.  It is virtually impossible to improve upon the cheap plans without incurring negative returns.  Any upcoming deals will likely include bigger data buckets and US roaming.  All I want for Christmas is removal of the VoLTE and 5G whitelist and world wide WiFi calling (Freedom edition).  

[ottawa]

So it's worth $16/mo net to keep getting texts while away (not dropping to $15 plan, I'd be too worried about losing the $25 plan though maybe I'm being foolish). Plus not having to worry about when 85 days have passed (yes set multiple reminders, but I still worried when I did it).

Many US phones can call Canada free, but a lot of people still can't. Most MVNOs couldn't (back when I did that) though Ryan's can. That's how we got started with OneSuite (cheap LD, not so cheap now) 20 years ago.

I see it's much more common now. In fact I just picked an MVNO at random (just one of many I've tried in the past) and they offer U$30/20GB including "FREE calling and texting to anywhere in the world + roaming in Mexico and Canada". My experience was those that offered international calling usually went through an access number and didn't always have great sound quality.

The Canada/MX roaming is new to me. PM's Canada-US is cheaper though, even in ON. 🙂

[DennyCrane]

@ottawa Yes, once your line becomes inactive, incoming texts will no longer work.

Most US phones can call Canada for free anyway. I have business in California and my local contacts have phone numbers from all over the US and Canada, so they're used to it as far as I can tell.

[ottawa]

Exactly, much better to have your own Canadian number (though it confuses Americans and undoubtedly costs some of them big LD charges). But Big Red now charges up to $240 for a month of that, if I'm reading their site right. I remember when it was capped at $50 for a month (when they introduced it).

Yeah the QC plans are better, that's why I thought just opening them to the rest of us for BF (whether $29/3GB Canada or $45/50GB Canada-US) would be an easy defensible move for PM. And yes I (who can only get $60/60GB/mo for 3 months) would happily take 20GB or even less of Canada-US for $40-$45.

I've traditionally bought preloaded MVNO SIMs off eBay, and then found Mint with a BF/SB offer (6mo for price of 3mo). Don't know if they'll do that again now that they're owned by TMo. I've been pushing QC friends and relatives to consider PM instead of some random US #.

If last year's SIM didn't still have time on it, I don't know what I'd do. At $60/mo PM is way better than Big Red, but hard to argue vs U$15/mo from Ryan, new # or not. What I've kind of given up on is leaving my PM account unpaid for 85 days, I assume incoming texts don't work at all starting day 1 of Inactive?

[DennyCrane]

@ottawa I'd settle for 20GB of Canada/US for $45.

Quebec has always had juicer plans, with all providers.

Mint and other travel services are great, but there's something to be said about having the continuity of your regular phone number for calls and texts.

[ottawa]

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@DennyCrane wrote:

I was hoping for a $45 Can/US plan, but since we lost the $50 Can/US plan a couple weeks ago, I'm thinking that's coming back at $50 again

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That would be nice. Even nicer would be to offer the rest of us QC pricing for this for a day ($45/50GB/30days or $120/150GB/90days). 🙂 Don't think I'd give up my Mint SIM for this :), but one family member in Montreal just renewed onto the $120 version with PM on Nov 13. Mint would actually be cheaper, but the convenience with PM is worth it, and they still get massive gloating rights over those they'll meet who are "roaming as if they were back in Canada". 🙂

[ottawa]

Also, I have to say, I'm very disappointed to see PM still screws up your online account on renewal date. Just went in to see if I can still see Oct 15-Nov 14 data usage, and saw that my service is on hold due to non-payment. Still works though (turned off WiFi and went somewhere new). Item in cart was added automatically I guess, it's inviting me to pay the net balance (Rewards already posted to account). Still have most of the 7GB free Add-Ons, so I'm not actually out of data.

[DennyCrane]

I was hoping for a $45 Can/US plan, but since we lost the $50 Can/US plan a couple weeks ago, I'm thinking that's coming back at $50 again.

@Scamp Something in the $29/30 range would be nice for sure.

[ottawa]

As others said, we're all on the same network, just throttled differently. As for OP's suggested $29 for 10GB, I could imagine PM offering the (currently QC-only) plan of $29/3GB@4G to everyone as a BF special, but not $29/10GB. The latter would diminish the value of the $34/20GB plan, and the current QC options do more to encourage paying the extra $5 (for 17GB more! 🙂 ) and never using it (only have to go over 3GB once to appreciate that you had 20GB). IOW, many people who'd pay $34 for 20GB would be attracted by $29/10GB, but not necessarily by $29/3GB.

I'm not saying they will offer that, but it would be an interesting 1-day "door crasher". I might take $29/3GB@4G (which I can't get right now) over my current $25/1GB@3G, but don't think I'd go up to $34/20GB@4G (my cheapest step up from what I have) without experiencing some serious benefit to 4G. Haven't felt any great benefit when on 4G or 5G on a US MVNO (not PM). "I never go over 1GB" but this month (ends Nov 14) I did. 😞

[dust2dust]

They really do need mid-grade data buckets. Or bump up the bucket for the $25 and $15 plans. But please understand that the 3G or 4G or 5G wording here actually means speed. You're buying an amount of data at a particular maximum speed.

[Hollister]

@Scamp 

I think it all depends on what Freedom is going to offer.

[Abheer]

Hi @Scamp 
We do not have any information on what they may offer on Black Friday, we will just have to wait and find out to see what they have in store for us.