Using Your Cell Phone Minutes

Using Your Minutes

Minutes are used in a hierarchical manner from most expensive to least expensive. Anytime minutes being the most expensive, off-peak being the next, and free being the last. The easiest way to understand this is with some real life examples.

A caller has a cellular plan with 400 anytime minutes and free nights (9pm) and weekends. Let�s say she places two calls 30 minutes each at 10pm at night. These calls will use up 60 of the 400 anytime minutes, as those are the most expensive minutes in the plan. Even though these calls were made at night, if there are unused anytime minutes they will be used first, before the free minutes. This is true with all cellular providers and cannot be avoided.

A caller has a plan with 30 anytime minutes and free nights (9pm) and weekends. Let�s say he places two 30 minute calls, each at 10pm at night. The first call would use up all of the free 30 anytime minutes. However, since the second call occurred during the free time period there would be no additional charges (assumes roaming charges don�s apply, see understanding long distance and roaming charges for more details).

A caller has a plan with 30 anytime minutes and free nights (9pm) and weekends. Let�s say she places two 30 minute calls, the first at 10pm at night, and the second at 1pm in the afternoon. The first call will use up all of the 30 anytime minutes. The second call will be billed as 30 minutes of overage charges. Again the anytime minutes were used first, until they have been depleted, before the overage charges began.

Using this type of calculation it�s very easy to see how you could be shocked by a large bill with lots of overage minutes, if you�re not careful about having enough minutes and when you use them.