So, I just got both my cellular and home phone put on the same account,
and switched from Friends & Family to OnePlan. You need to hit $25 a
month for the savings to kick in on either plan, but I will now combine
the long distance totals from the two phones rather than having each
tabulate separately. F&F gives a 20% discount on all calls and 25% to
other F&F customers. OnePlan is a flat $0.12 a minute on all calls, and
they bill in 6 second increments. I think F&F is more obnoxious than a
chain letter (though it was a brilliant marketing scheme), and it turns
out that I don't call many F&F subscribers. (The operator can calculate
what your phone bill would have been on different plans.)
The other great thing about MCI is frequent flyer miles. For every
dollar spent, they give you five miles on American, Continental, Delta,
Southwest or Northwest. Additionally, they have a program to bill you
through your American Express card. So, for each dollar of calls, I get
5 Delta miles and 1 AmEx Membership Rewards mile, which I can then
transfer to Delta or 12 other FF programs. (Also, by billing through
AmEx I get longer float.) Lastly, I took up MCI's offer to have them
handle intrastate toll calls (in place of my local exchange carrier,
GTE), so I get the miles on those calls too.
Rohit et al, any suggestions for further optimizations?
- dan
-- Daniel Kohn <dan@teledesic.com> Teledesic Corporation PGP KeyID: 0x6129DD6D +1-425-602-6222 (voice) 602-0002 (fax) http://www.teledesic.comP.S. Given that long distance continues to represent a majority of MCI's revenues, is there anything odd about the fact that their Web site doesn't have a section on LD information? For instance, try to find info on their Frequent Flyer program. You can't do it without using the search engine or choosing About Us: Product Glossary: Alphabetized Listing: Bonus Program: frequent flyer miles which gets you to <http://www.mci.com/aboutus/products/glossary/bonus/index.shtml>. Well, that's aggressive marketing for you.