What You Need to Know About Verizon's Friends and Family Plan
Can Verizon's Friends and Family Feature Save You Money?
The Friends and Family feature is free on some Verizon wireless plans. Calls to the numbers on the Friends and Family plan will not use up wireless minutes. Both wireless and landline phone numbers in the U.S. are eligible.
The Friends and Family feature sounds simple enough, but there are a few restrictions that apply. If you have a Verizon Nationwide Single Line plan, you must have at least a 900 minute plan. Customers with the 900 minute plan can choose up to 5 phone numbers to add to their Friends and Family plan for unlimited calling to those numbers.
For Verizon Nationwide Family Share plans, you must have at least at 1,400 minute plan in order to qualify for the Friends and Family feature. Family plan subscribers with at least 1,400 minutes can add up to 10 phone numbers to their Friends and Family numbers.
Verizon customers must log onto the Verizon website in order to check their eligibility and add phone numbers to the Friends and Family feature.
Will Verizon's Friends and Family Feature Save You Money?
So, will customers save money with Verizon's new Friends and Family feature? Maybe. If you currently have a 900 minute plan and find yourself using up all of your minutes each month, you could benefit from the Friends and Family feature. By adding 5 phone numbers to your Friends and Family list, you could stay with the 900 minute plan instead of purchasing a more expensive plan with additional minutes.
Customers who choose to utilize Friends and Family should be careful. Once you have assigned your 5 or 10 phone numbers, you may think you are talking less than you actually are because the Friends and Family talk time is not deducted from your wireless minutes.
If you have a 1,400 minute family plan with 10 Friends and Family numbers assigned, it may appear that you are using up less than 1,400 minutes a month. Customers who take advantage of the Friends and Family feature should take that into account if they are considering switching to a scaled back plan because of their low minute usage.
A plan under 1,400 minutes for a Nationwide Family Share plan would not be eligible for the Friends and Family feature. Thus, a family who was using Friends and Family on their 1,400 minute plan could actually end up paying more by dropping to a smaller plan and going over their minutes.
Each Verizon subscriber should take a look at their plan and how many minutes they use. If a customer is on a qualifying plan already, the Friends and Family feature is a great bonus. Customers who currently have plans with fewer than 900 minutes for Nationwide Single Line Plan or 1,400 minutes for Nationwide Family Share Plan should take a look at their call history. If they tend to call the same numbers often, it may be worthwhile to switch to a higher minute plan and take advantage of Friends and Family.
Source
Verizon Wireless News Center, Friends & Family Will Forever Change The Way Customers View Their Verizon Wireless Calling Plans, http://news.vzw.com/news/2009/02/pr2009-02-12.htmlVerizon has a new feature called Friends and Family.Some cell phone plans automatically qualify for the Friends and Family feature.
Published by Kristy Martz
Kristy is a freelance article and short story writer who has lived in 13 different places. Her nomadic upbringing has given her a wide range of experiences. She managed to juggle a full-time job and two sma... View profile
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8 Comments
Post a CommentVerizon still makes it fairly difficult to tell which numbers you should include on your list of 5 - 10 "Friends and Family." <a href="http://www.friendsandfamilyoptimizer.com">http://www.friendsandfamilyoptimizer.com</a> is a free tool that can help take full advantage of the feature.
Verizon still makes it fairly difficult to tell which numbers you should include on your list of 5 - 10 "Friends and Family." http://www.friendsandfamily.com is a free tool that can help take full advantage of the feature.
You can also change out your friends and family numbers as much as you want, but it takes up to 24 hours to update. And if you are out of the US (say, like CANADA or MEXICO) duh- your friends and family don't apply. Only the minutes on your Canada plan (or the new Mexico plan) apply, accordingly, and it's easy to go over.The friend's and family plan is for US only- incoming and outgoing. So just be careful, or you'll end up like the guy who commented before me :) You also cannot do 1-800 numbers or your own cell number (to check your own voicemail before 9 pm or not on weekeds takes minutes) Just FYI. I used to work at VZW- great article
Something else you need to know about Verizon's Friends and Family Plan. Be very careful about Verizon friends and family. I have a Verizon cell phone, and a land line in Houston. I spend most of my time in Canada, (I have the North American plan.)so I signed up for Friends and Family, using one of my Houston numbers listed on my Friends and Family. I was calling my wife several times a day (using my Vonage phone, calling from Canaga), thinking I wouldn't get charged minutes. When I got the bill, none of my friends and family time was used, but my regular minutes were way over the limit. I called Verizon and talked to a supervisor and explained to him and he told me if I was using my cell in Canada, to call a states land line, that I wouldn't get credit for friends and family, because I'm calling out of the U.S. I told him that nothing on Verizon's website or anyplace else stated that 'I' must be CALLING from within the U.S. to use friends and family. He wouldn't budge. I chec
Haha, Krista. I think that's called "cell plan discrimination". ;)
Great info! I tend not to have any non Verizon friend. Well I do have one, but he was a friend before Verizon existed, thats how he snuck by. Maybe I can make some non-Verizon friends now. :o)
Great info, especially since Verizon bought Alltel and I'm going to have to renew my contract soon.
Because it's too expensive? I am not a cell phone person, but got a Virgin Mobile some years ago when I was looking for a job and didnt' want the calls coming into my office and for emergencies. Works fine for me. $15 every three months. Can't beat that! Of course, I don't have a Verizon crowd following me around when I go upstate, but I'm on vacation, so who cares?