After years with T-Mobile, the carrier just gave me a big reason to stay

It doesn’t feel like that long ago that I used to joke that T-Mobile’s service was fine, unless you liked making calls indoors. However, the company has come a long way in 25 years, and it’s now my preferred carrier for all my testing and personal use. I live in a rural part of Northern New Jersey, and I get excellent signal in the mountains and valleys, and I’ve been impressed with the company’s Ultra Capacity 5G performance.

I also switched because of the value and versatility. It costs me less per month on T-Mobile than on AT&T, and T-Mobile is much more flexible, letting me test different phones — including overseas releases without much hassle. I always felt I was saving money with T-Mobile, but the company’s T-Mix announcement has given me a big reason to stick around even longer.

I don’t even want to think about how many hundreds (or thousands) of dollars I throw away each year on unused complimentary perks and subscriptions. It’s not something I often factor into my buying decisions, and I’m sure there are any number of benefits I’m entitled to that I’m not using. T-Mobile’s new T-Mix plans will change that. Picking out your perks is an integral part of the process, and it’s a concrete way to claw some tangible value back from your mobile data plan.

The T-Mix plans come in three varieties. The T-Mix Standard plan starts at $55, with the T-Mix More and T-Mix Loaded plans starting at $75 and $95, respectively. Savings only ramp up as you add more lines. Four lines on the Standard plan would cost $115 per month, while four lines on the Loaded plan would cost $240 per month. The base plan has data and streaming quality limits, but the More and Loaded price points include unlimited data and 4K streaming.

The T-Mix plans only get interesting when you add the perks. The Standard plan gives you one perk point per line, while the Loaded plan gives you three. You can also pool perk points across one account, so it’s easy to see how they add up. You can find a complete list of perks in our story on the announcement, but they range from a Netflix standard account with ads to an ESPN Ultimate subscription.

It may sound silly, but actively choosing my rewards makes me exponentially more likely to use them. It’s also easy to draw a direct line to the amount of money I save each month. The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription stands out. Normally, it would cost $22 per month, but it’s included in the $95 Loaded plan if you use your three perk points.

That’s an outstanding deal for gamers, because you can use Xbox Cloud Gaming on your mobile phone and have a portable game console. Unlimited premium data and hundreds of dollars’ worth of games to play (while you’re still subscribed) make $95 per month easier to stomach. Even if you aren’t a gamer, there are still perks that make sense. You’ll have to pool points from multiple lines, but the ESPN Ultimate subscription is ideal for sports fans, and you can even pick up an ad-free Netflix account for three perk points. If you’re a family with multiple lines, you can choose a few different perks that fit within your allotment. You aren’t locked into your choices forever. Every three months, you can mix (get it?) things up and try different combinations.

It’s an interesting concept. While perks for signing up with a mobile carrier aren’t unique to T-Mobile, I appreciate that the company is working to make the process more transparent. If I have to pay so much for my carrier monthly, I at least welcome the opportunity to custom-fit my rewards to get some of that value back.

Of course, T-Mobile’s new plans aren’t all smooth sailing. If you bring your own phone and don’t care about carrier finance deals, none of these other issues will affect you. However, T-Mobile may tie future discounts and new-phone promotions to perk points. If you want the latest Galaxy phone at a low monthly price, it may cost you three perk points for the life of the loan, meaning you give up some subscriptions. That’s not without value, since you’re still saving on a new phone, but it can be an annoying, unintended consequence.

All told, the new plans have a lot of upside, and I’ll be interested in switching over. With my current setup, I’d be eligible for 6 perk points on the three lines I have for testing. The $155 I’d spend a month seems less daunting when I can point to the $50-60 I’m seeing in savings as a result. I may not want to know how much I’m currently throwing away in complementary perk subscriptions, but I do know I’ll be paying more attention to plans like T-Mix in the future — it might be time for you to do the same.