"For accounts opened after 7/31/19, with By the Gig lines, a minimum $12.00 charge applies per month, regardless of data usage. Data charge applies to each GB or partial GB of shared data. Data shared monthly with other By the Gig lines. No rollover data."
Old accounts remain under the old rules so you can add new lines etc under the old rules.
There is also a $20 charge per month if you do not maintain another xfinity service (up from $10)
And a couple of new plan tiers:
3gb for $30
10gb for $60
I'm not an Comcast customer, so I'm not that familiar with the old plan-- other than the minimum charge now being $12, are there significant changes to the 'By The Gig' plan?
This change makes it a good costly to maintain talk and text lines on Comcast, which I've been doing. Currently, I maintain 3 lines which are actually used by my parents in a city not serviced by Comcast and a 4th one as a personal backup. I pay only about $2.50 in taxes and fees for each line for unlimited talk and text. All phones have data turned off at all times, so I never get charged by the gig.
I generally use the 4th and 5th slots for going through 3-4 month activation/deactivation churn cycles to take advantage of Xfinity's iPhone BYOD promotions. This requires a port-in, and I've been using freedompop numbers for that. You also have to maintain an inventory of spare iPhones...I used to do this with a 5s and 5c but had to upgrade to iPhone 6. I've already earned $600 this year doing this. I made quite a bit more last year when the rebate was $150/line and my parent's lines were new.
It looks like with these changes, someone newly signing up for Xfinity Mobile will pay an extra $12 for what I do.
Xfinity Mobile early adopters will soon no longer be grandfathered. All users are being migrated to their "Second generation" plans, which require minimum payment of $12 (plus taxes) even if you don't use any data. Previously, you could just get away with just paying taxes with no monthly data charge if your account used less than 100mb in a billing cycle.
Xfinity Mobile isn't my main carrier but I've had a continuous active account with them for years. I usually have anywhere between 2-5 lines active with them. The base 2 are lines that I maintain for my parents, who only use their phones for talk and text. The other lines are slots I use whenever I want to earn a $50-$100 gift card for bringing over a BYOD device. I then make sure I maintain the line for the required 3 months. After that, the line becomes porting fodder (e.g. Visible swaps).
I've never had more than 5 lines on this account. That is because I was told several times that I could not have more. This was an issue a few times when I experienced porting issues (especially from FreedomPop) and I had to cancel the line and wait a few days before I could start over, because it usually takes some time for Xfinity's systems to recognize that an old slot has opened.
Today, however, I found out by chance that my account now allows me a total of 7 lines, not 5. I have no idea when this happened because I don't recall getting a notice about this. I've done some googling and there is mention by a few that they are allowed more than 5 lines, but the how is completely opaque.
Does anyone else here with Xfinity Mobile have privilege to keep more than 5 lines? If so, do you recall how you got the extra lines?
I heard you can have a max of 10 but it is based on your credit and history. The longer you stay with them the more lines they will let you have. Probably why you got access to two more.
If you ever buy a phone with them check xfinity rewards first as they have been handing out $25-100 off.
Is there somewhere that tells you how many you are allowed?
On the main overview page, it shows your current lines/numbers. It currently shows my 4 active ones and 1 port-in that is pending. I noticed that at the top right, I still had an option to click "Add lines" I thought that was strange because I thought it disappeared when you were at your max. So I clicked it and went through most of the process of adding a new line with a new number, using my work iPhone 8 as the proposed BYOD device. I never encountered a message that I had already reached my max.
I decided to call customer service to find out how many lines I'm allowed on my account. The guy told me 7. He wasn't able to tell me when I had been upgraded from 5.
I'm pretty sure, however, that the maximum of 10 lines that can theoretically have is a recent policy change. I'm positive that the absolute max use to be 5. Xfinity seems to have just done it and also upgraded certain accounts without much fanfare or notice.
I might just go ahead and add a 6th line for real after my port-in is fully activated, just so that I can confirm that this is not an illusion. It will only cost me about $2 in taxes on my next bill. Once that's activated, I can just turn around and port the new number out for another ZTE A7 and free month of service (for the cost of $5 and one of my broken phones).
Xfinity's pricing structure is a bit different from most carriers and is best utilized by people who want to maintain a lot of lines but don't use much data. If you sign up for the minimum "by the gig" plan, you only pay $15/month for the first gigabyte of data you use on any of the 1-5 lines you can maintain on your account. You do not pay any extra for voice or text. If you have 1 line and you use 999 mbs, the base price is the same if you have 5 lines and use the same amount of data. The only difference is that you also pay about $2/month on taxes and fees.
If you want your lines to have more data, you can choose $30/month for up to 3GB or $60/month for up to 10GB.
For early adopters like me, Xfinity used to not charge anything except taxes if your lines used less than 100mb in a given month. Now, the minimum applies whether or not you use any data. I am grandfathered, however, into paying only $12/month, the only drawback being that my lines don't have access to 5G.
Finally, you have to stay with Xfinity home internet to maintain this pricing. If you terminate your home internet but keep Xfinity Mobile, you pay an extra $20/line.
At any given time, I maintain 3-5 lines that don't use much data, so I pay about $20/month. That will probably change to 4-7 lines going forward ow that I know I am actually allowed up to 7 lines. I usually make up for whatever I have to pay (and more) by churning lines to take advantage of their $50 BYOD promotions and by taking advantage of their periodic iPhone upgrade deals (I acquire new phones, qualify for $200-$300 gift cards, unlock the phones, and re-sell them for profit).
It appears that Xfinity's 60-day device unlock policy may not be a hard and fast rule. I bought an iPhone SE on Sep. 19, paying the full price of $399 (plus tax). I received the phone on the 23rd and activated on the 24th. With the upgrade an existing line deal, I will qualify for a $300 GC sent via snail mail. Earlier today, I called a live agent to request a device unlock. It was granted and I've verified that the SE is SIM-free in practice.
A few others on the SD forum have also experienced the same thing. If you pay full price and are a long-time customer, Xfinity seems to be lenient on unlocking.
On the last two BYODs I did with Xfinity, the lines cannot access 3G calling/texting. Both BYODs were activated using Galaxy S22 5G phones. For my next BYOD line ($100 GC currently being offered), I'm going to activate with an iPhone 7 to see if non-5G phone lines can still get 3G.
PS: Yes, I know that Verizon 3G goes away at the end of the year.
Keep an eye on the rebate status. Two of mine were qualified one day and then next week I looked they had vanished. I had made no changes to the account. Fortunately I took a screenshot showing they were qualified but the contact form on the incentive tracker never seems to elicit a response. Any idea the best way to chase these up? I still have the lines active so seems strange the gift cards disappeared completely.
If you want to talk to them, call when they open at 8:30am eastern time
1-800-526-3268
Frankly, I wouldn't worry too much. They sometimes appear and disappear without rhyme or reason. A few times, I've had GCs never track and then they suddenly showed up as "shipped." The only times I've been disqualified is when I when I brought back a phone that I had already used previously to qualify for a GC.
I finally got my gift cards after some chasing. The online support form on the incentive tracker never gets replied to so I had to go through the regular chat. After several attempts the gift cards reappeared on the tracker with the ticket numbers and a couple of days later I received the gift cards.
Yes the $10 fee is bad. But I made so much from them I am not upset lol.
I see from the "new plan" that you can get an unlimited line for $20 if you have 5 lines including by the gig. Which is nice.
Are you sure that line 5 can be unlimited for $20 even if lines 1-4 are by-the-gig? I currently have 6 active lines and when I try to switch the last one I added to unlimited, the dashboard tells me that it will cost $45/month.