PSA: Apple Card Daily Cash Back From T-Mobile Dropping to 2% in July

[Gengar]

You know ... it's funny -- I remember when it was en vogue to refer to T-Mobile as a clown company, even as they were assassinating AT&T and Verizon for their horrible behaviors. "Something something, T-mobile wouldn't have to do this if their network and coverage wasn't ass." "It's all just smoke and mirrors to get suckers to subscribe to their craptastic network." I remember forum members here arguing that they wanted carrier subsidies back - even though the carrier subsidy was -literally- smoke and mirrors for an instant loan that you unknowingly paid back though the base service fee you paid (and that you never got to stop repaying after the 'loan' was paid off). The best you could do to 'stop' repaying that instant loan was to buy a new phone. (but, that said mobile phones were evolving light speed at the time)

Now, no one can criticize T-mobile, in that same fashion, because as you point out they're now the number 2 carrier, having displaced AT&T. Because their network is not a joke and their subscribers are sticking around because they are generally well served. But, it's not lost on me that T-mobile has "lived long enough to be come the villain". That said, if T-mobile is now the "bad guy" while still gaining customers and while still kicking both AT&T and Verizon in the nuts -- Maybe AT&T and Verizon want to "un-carrier" T-Mobile? Because T-mobile -is- going to become the number one carrier.

AT&T is still gaining customers as well. It's only Verizon that T-Mobile is "kicking in the nuts." That's mostly due to Verizon's lack of 5G coverage (outside of metro areas) since they are behind T-Mobile and AT&T in that aspect as they lack the amount of low band spectrum T-Mobile and AT&T have, on top of them having the most expensive plan prices AND them requiring premium plans to access their "Ultra Wideband" 5G network while AT&T and T-Mobile allow 5G+ and 5G Ultra Capacity on any plan.

 

[nburwell]

Meh, I’ll continue using my AC to pay my TMO bill regardless. I always thought the 3% wasn’t going to last forever.

 

[jonblatho]

Not sure how that would work. If I pay with Debit I have already paid so nothing to get the 3% on.

However the Apple Cash will function as a debit card. I just checked. I expect that I can use Apple cash to pay the bill within Apple pay to get the 2%.

Apple Cash also has an automatic top up feature to make sure there is enough cash available.

It looked like people were talking in circles at you so I quit reading. Apologies if this has been stated elsewhere:

You have to use Apple Card to get cash back. Apple Cash doesn’t do cash back anywhere, to my knowledge, and functions purely like a digital checking account/debit card.

If you have autopay configured with a debit card or bank account but pay manually with a credit card, you don’t lose the autopay discount. So, if you manually pay your bill with the Apple Card (via Apple Pay) between the time you receive your bill and the autopay date, you get both the 3%/2% cash back and the autopay discount.

You’d think it works this way everywhere, but it doesn’t, so important to clarify: Autopay charges you the balance on your account, so if you have a zero balance on the autopay date (that is, you manually paid your bill in full), you don’t get charged twice.

 

[OGdrknight]

T-Mobile proving that it is no longer the "un-carrier", yet again.

They also just raised their prices on older plans $5 per line. The company is turning to crap under the new CEO. We need John Legere back in the drivers seat!

 

[macduke]

I haven't used this for a long time anyway, because T-Mobile got greedy and stopped giving the autopay discount if you use a credit card. Was difficult to justify the small cash back discount compared to the larger autopay discount. So it comes straight out of my bank account now.

T-Mobile has slowly been getting worse over time. That's what happens when you temporarily hire someone to artificially pump up your user base with consumer friendly policies, just so you can buy out your main competitor and then bail with a golden parachute. Then the new guy comes in and slowly boils the frog that is their customers. It was by design all along!