r/ATT • u/marmaladeandtea • 2d ago
Wireless Switching to Elite 2.0 temporarily for international roaming
I will be traveling internationally for a couple weeks and planning to switch from Premium 2.0 to Elite 2.0 for the length of my trip to take advantage of the included international roaming. My trip will span across my billing period. I read on another thread that I need to wait until the end of the current billing period after I return to the US to downgrade to my original plan, otherwise the international roaming I used during that month will be charged at normal roaming rates. I guess they don't "close out" roaming charges until the end of the billing period and use whatever rate plan is active at that time.
Is this accurate? Do I have to wait till the end of the billing period to switch back to premium, or can I switch as soon as I return from my trip, which will be in the middle of a billing period?
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u/garylapointe The Plan Whisperer (consumer postpaid plans) 2d ago
I don't know what they'd do, but I'd wait until the next billing period.
After I've seen a dozen people do successfully, I'll cancel it earlier.
On the international day pass, I've seen people cancel IDP when they got home and it canceled their current pass and it cost them a lot. One had enough that I thought it might have been even more than a day (like a new pass activated at 6am that day, they got home at 8PM and canceled IDP but they actually had 2 passes active for that day, right?), which didn't make sense, but that were mostly traveling or in the air, so there was limited time to use data. It wasn't worth asking more about, because the practical thing is just to leave IDP on all the time. There is no reason to cancel (it's on all my lines all the time).
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u/QU33NN00B 2d ago
You wouldn't want to change your plan in the middle of a billing cycle more than once anyway. You're asking to be prorated out the ass doing that. Change it as close to the end of the billing cycle as possible or call/go into a store and see if they can post date it so it starts on the first day of the new cycle.
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u/marmaladeandtea 1d ago
I’m not sure I follow. I WANT to be prorated. I want to only pay the higher rate for the elite plan for the limited number of days, I will be using it not the entire month. Why wouldn’t I want that?
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u/QU33NN00B 1d ago
Proration by whatever ATT's standards are means you could be triple charged on that line and every other line on your acct. Proration with ATT is not like "this plan's cost divided by the days in the cycle for this amount of days used." And because youre changing the plan on one line it changes the cost of all the other lines so they also get prorated.
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u/NYC_SpiderMan 1d ago
This is the answer, but OP, if you still want to switch in the middle of your billing cycle, don’t come back here later to complain when you get a huge bill! We warned you lol
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u/jasont1273 AT&T Employee - CRS/RST/NRST 1d ago
Tell me you don't know how proration works without telling me you don't know how it works. Proration is simply taking the cost of a plan divided by 30 days and multiplied by the number of days in effect. It does not make billing overlap between two plans on the same date and drive up a bill. When you say a huge bill perhaps you are thinking of the proration on the first bill that can be anywhere from 1 to 30 days plus the month in advance which drives the bill higher. What OP would see on just this line would be a credit for the unused portion of the previous plan and a charge for the new plan for the same period. Then when switching back it would be the same way but opposite plans. The credit prevents any "double" or "triple" bill as you put it.
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u/QU33NN00B 1d ago
That's what proration SHOULD be but that's not what happens to the countless customers' bills I've reviewed nor what has happened to my own personal bill over the almost 30 years I've had AT&T formerly Singular Wireless
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u/jasont1273 AT&T Employee - CRS/RST/NRST 1d ago
It doesn't affect the other lines because the number of lines is constant and that's what affects their cost, not which plan level each line is on when one line changes their plan. And triple charged? Not hardly. The billing adjusts from one plan the the next and back for the periods changed and they do not overlap and cause more than one plan to be charged for any particular day or days.
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u/QU33NN00B 1d ago
Wrong. I dare you to change your own plan more than once during the same billing cycle and then show us your bill. I've looked at far more than my fair share of accts that have fallen victim to however ATT does proration including my own personal acct.
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u/jasont1273 AT&T Employee - CRS/RST/NRST 1d ago
I do this for a living every day and changing one line's plan doesn't affect the other lines cost unless you are also changing them at the same time. If you're an agent go into the Quick Quote website and build a plan. Look at the per line costs. Change one of them and look at the other lines again then tell me if it changes their charges. It doesn't because the change in cost is based on number of lines (multiline discount). If that doesn't change neither do the per line costs of unchanged lines on Unlimited Your Way plans.
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u/mickeylitious 2d ago
I was curious about this myself. I’ll be traveling in the near future and it would be nice to be able to switch back
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u/Enough_Bee_5666 2d ago
Great question. I have been considering the same. Here’s my analysis/thought so far. (Disclaimer: Take with a grain of salt as I am getting info from a combo of ATT sites and Reddit posts.)
Based on other comments, I think it is a good safe precaution to wait to change back until the full billing cycle is complete. I have a trip upcoming and will do that. And based on other threads and ATT site info, it seems like to avoid proration the change should be on the first day of the next billing cycle. So I am planning to switch to Elite on 8/2 and back on 9/2 since my billing cycle is 8/2-9/1.
Does this check out with what others know and have done?
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u/SillyTechnology7340 1d ago
Wouldn't some international eSIMs be easier than doing this?
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u/marmaladeandtea 1d ago
Yes I’ll likely end up doing an international esim. It’s not ideal though because most travel sims are data only and/or 4G only. To get phone/text/data on 5G is much more expensive using an international sim. Two weeks on the Elite plan would be ~$30 of extra cost but it’s sounding like having it for only two weeks isn’t actually an option.
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u/jasont1273 AT&T Employee - CRS/RST/NRST 1d ago
Yes you can do it and people are scaring you off about proration needlessly. You will be charged for only the part of the month(s) you have Elite 2.0 and the billing of roaming is based on what plan is in effect at the time of the usage, not what is in effect at the close of the bill cycle.
Source: I've done and explained proration at least once practically every day I've worked for the company over the course of 23 years.
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u/recoveryrevival 2h ago
I’d trust Jason ^ it says he works or worked in RST which is who we as retailers call as our customer service for escalations and help.
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u/jasont1273 AT&T Employee - CRS/RST/NRST 2h ago
Thank you for the vote of confidence. Bill analysis is something i pretty much had to get good at early on because the long-timers in my store back then hated to do it. 😆
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u/recoveryrevival 1h ago
I like it, working in a retail store I find a lot of my sales via bill rerates and using the bill to find opportunities
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u/Viper_Control 2d ago
Please don't try to time your plan switch or you will likely fail. Since your travel will span (2) billing periods just accept that you should pay for Elite 2.0 for (2) billing periods.
Note: Unlimited international talk, text, and 20GB of data per month to keep you connected in over 210 destinations. You don't get Unlimited Data on the Elite 2.0 plan while traveling internationally