Tired of sparking media controversy and generating customer frustration with almost
every move, public announcement, and
policy change over the last few months,
T-Mobile is finally doing something right that no one can possibly find any fault with.
Curiously enough, the “Un-carrier” is not promoting its very positive upcoming revisions to the already popular Protection 360 program much, quietly informing subscribers by mail of what’s on the horizon according to an internal document leaked by the always resourceful folks over at
The Mobile Report.
The information contained in said doc and a second one detailing the soon-to-be-revised terms of the
T-Mobile Protection 360 plan is actually confirmed and detailed even further
on the operator’s official website, so all that’s set to happen on October 1 is in fact etched in stone.
Four big upgrades, zero additional costs
You know how T-Mo has been
increasing monthly prices, taxes, and
fees left and right of late without offering anything to justify those hikes or even taking features and benefits away from longtime subscribers? For once, the opposite will take place in less than two months, with the following improvements somehow keeping Protection 360 prices unchanged:
- Unlimited accidental damage claims, including front screen and back glass repair;
- $0 front screen repairs for “eligible” smartphones;
- Back glass repair for $29 for eligible smartphones;
- Front screen repair for $29 for eligible iPad Pro and iPad Air models.
T-Mobile’s upcoming Protection 360 upgrades were first revealed in this leaked document.
Those gratis front screen repairs sound particularly amazing (even if it’s not entirely clear what phones will be eligible), currently costing $29 a pop, which can obviously add up if you have some sort of aversion to screen protectors.
The back glass repairs, meanwhile, will be a new thing for the Protection 360 plan, allowing you to save a lot of money over the $99 charged for “accidental damage” of this sort (and many other types) right now.
“Eligible” iPad Pros and iPad Airs will apparently not get the same courtesy, still lumping back glass repairs together with other instances of “accidental damage”, but for what it’s worth (and it can be worth a lot), front screen repairs will also get cheaper for these devices.
Last but not least, those who tend to break their devices
really often will be delighted to see the plan’s current limit of accidental damage claims removed. On the not so bright side of things,
T-Mobile will also start to charge late fees for unpaid monthly costs of this service on the same October 1 date, but that’s unlikely to impact many customers and the fees themselves don’t exactly sound massive.
Wait, so how much is Protection 360 again?
Unfortunately, your monthly price can vary quite a lot depending on what kind of phone or tablet you own, starting as low as $7 and going all the way up to $25.
The easiest way to find out how much you need to pay is to
visit this website and enter the full details of the product you want to enroll in the program… if you haven’t enrolled yet. To give you a few examples, something like the
Samsung Galaxy S24 (and S24 Plus, and S24 Ultra) falls into the “Tier 5” category, requiring a Protection 360 expense of $18 a month.
These prices are amazingly set to remain the same even after October 1. | Image Credit — T-Mobile
That actually seems to be true for most high-end smartphones released in the last few years, while the entry-level Samsung Galaxy A14, for instance, is a “Tier 2” device with a $9 monthly P360 cost.
Protection 360 recently expanded to accept phones and tablets at any point after their purchase, mind you, but if you don’t enroll your device when you first get it, it will have to clear a visual mechanical inspection in a T-Mobile store to qualify.
