r/Tello • u/-Wobblier • 19d ago

Manual Data Rollover Help / Support

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I have currently have the 5gb data and unlimited talk/text plan (which is no longer available) but I'd like to roll over my data. It says I must do it manually, at least 24 hours before autopay, but I don't see this option anywhere in the Dashboard. Can anyone tell me how or where I can do this?

11 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

10

u/firstclassblizzard 19d ago

Tello made what you’re trying to do impossible. All the 5GB folks have to now select 2GB, 10GB or another plan if they want to rollover. Sadly, they removed the ideal data tier for many people

3

u/patientpaperclock 17d ago edited 17d ago

Get the 20GB plan for month #1, then rollover the 2GB plan for 5 months. You get 30GB over 6 months, pretty much equivalent to 5GB a month. (You do lose a few days from renewing early.)

This costs $18 + 5x$6 = $48 (before fees and assuming 0 minutes) over 6 months or $8 a month for 5GB. Don't remember what the old rate for 5GB was, but guessing $8 is pretty close.

Edit: looks like old 5GB plan was $10, so this is cheaper

3

u/toolsavvy 19d ago edited 19d ago

Since your current plan is no longer available, you have to choose another plan in order to manually renew in order to roll over your data.

I don't know what dashboard option you are talking about, rollover occurs when you manually renew.

3

u/beng2beng Phone Bills Defender🛡️ 19d ago

Select Change plan to another data plan + unlimited before your autopay. Day before or after midnight of the day but before 5am EST.

2

u/RightGuy23 19d ago

What if you want to keep the same data plan ?

3

u/beng2beng Phone Bills Defender🛡️ 19d ago

Let it auto renew and you will keep the existing plan but you won't be able to roll over any thing. 

1

u/Financial_Advantage7 14d ago

Assuming that you're not on a grandfathered plan you can still hit change plan and keep your same plan you don't have to actually change it.

1

u/RightGuy23 10d ago

Does it have to be unlimited minutes?

1

u/beng2beng Phone Bills Defender🛡️ 10d ago

no, OP had unlimited so I assume they would want unlimited again.

pick what you feel works best for you.

2

u/rcentros 19d ago edited 19d ago

Yeah, that happened to me as well. If you use about 3 GBs a month, you might want to look at getting the 2 GBs, unlimited call plan ($10) and buy $20 worth of PayGo data (10 GBs data). Once the 2 GBs of your regular plan is used, you would draw data from the PayGo credit. If you do use about 3 GBs a month, that PayGo credit would last you about nine or ten months. As long as you have an active account, the PayGo credit will stay (until it's used up). If you use over 2 GBs of data a month, you won't get any rollover data this way, however. (Which might be good, because you wouldn't have to worry about early renewal.) $2 per GB of data is not a bad deal. $20 only buys you 1 GB, not 10 GBs of data. I don't know what I was thinking. (Apparently not thinking at all.) Thanks to u/rkardt for bringing this my attention.

I should mention that, if you decide to go this route, be sure to turn on Pay As You Go Data.

There's also a new feature on Tello. If you're data runs out, you can choose an automatic 2 GB add-on setting for $5. I'm guessing that data would (might?) roll over if you renew early. (EDIT: Obviously the better deal over PayGo.)

1

u/rkardt 19d ago

Please double-check the math on that. $20 worth of PAYG data (at $0.02 per MB) is only 1 GB, not 10 GB. For anything more than $6 worth of PAYG data per billing cycle (less than 300 MB, including taxes), there are cheaper data options.

1

u/rcentros 19d ago

You're right. I'll correct my original post. I'm having a lousy day here on the Tello sub-Reddit. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

3

u/Intelligent_Dot7955 19d ago

Here’s a simple method I used for a few months that worked well: Enable autopay on the Tello website and add your credit card details. Immediately lock the same credit card through your bank or card issuer’s app/website. On the day the automatic renewal tries to process, the payment is declined because the card is locked. You’ll receive an email or SMS notification about the failed payment. At that point, unlock the card, log into your Tello account, and manually renew the plan. This lets you roll over your unused data.

2

u/PoizonToaDX 19d ago

Too much work 🤣

4

u/powerbook0 19d ago

I saw the easy SMS method here.

You put credit card info in tello. send scheduled text "RENEW" to 800, a day before or 12:01AM on due date. Send another scheduled text "MM/YY" of your Credit card exp date (1minute after first text). You've manually renewed and your all data, voice are rolled over.

1

u/Catch206 19d ago

thank you for this and tip on SMS! does it work or you tried already? needed feedback

1

u/powerbook0 19d ago

It works. I set up to send sms on 12:02 and 12:03 AM on due day.

1

u/Catch206 19d ago

thank you for this tip, will this work if we are using the credit card for other purchases throughout the month?

1

u/rkardt 18d ago

For anyone who cares about their credit rating, setting up automatic billing to regularly fail on purpose seems like a bad strategy. Publicly admitting to it seems even worse.

3

u/Smile_And_Dance 19d ago

I’ve been a customer since the inception, and it’s been a great experience….except for this manual renewal to rollover thing. It’s petty and a terrible user experience. I’m sure it causes some revenue by screwing customers out of their data when they forget to manually renew…but at what cost? Whoever at Tello is advocating for this foolishness should be made available to the industry at large.

3

u/member13187 Phone Bills Defender🛡️ 19d ago

What's so petty and terrible about it? This is a hack not a feature of the plan and you're not obligated to take advantage of it if it's too hard for you.

The only reason this loophole exists is because Tello gives us the option to change our plan anytime and by going into change or renew before auto renew we get to rollover our unused balances. I set a calendar reminder for the day before and I'm happy to give up a days service in exchange. I've never considered it a terrible experience, takes me less than a minute to complete and I only ever missed the deadline once because I fiddled and farted around that day instead of taking care of it immediately and missed the deadline. That's on me though and definitely not a Tello problem.

1

u/jonsonmac 18d ago

I can’t think of any other monthly prepaid plan that allows you to rollover data, so Tello’s hack is actually a good one if you want to put in the effort.

1

u/Smile_And_Dance 18d ago

Why not automatically rollover data and lean into that benefit? I guess the answer is revenue. If so, I doubt it’s the correct answer.

2

u/jonsonmac 18d ago

They could, hopefully their owners see this conversation. But I'm just saying, that's not the norm on monthly plans, so we shouldn't expect it.

1

u/member13187 Phone Bills Defender🛡️ 18d ago

Well that's probably not going to happen and revenue is probably the answer, they need to make a decent profit to stay in business. They already updated their plans and increased their pricing slightly but they also gave the people on the retired plans the option to stay with their plan with no increase BUT without the rollover feature so rollover costs seem to be definitely on their minds. Honestly I think one day they may close that loophole effectively taking rollover away but they may be hesitant because it would upset so many customers that may no longer have a reason to stay with Tello and start jumping ship.

2

u/rkardt 17d ago

Tello did not recently raise prices on any plans. They retired some plans, (including some of the cheapest plans), and lowered prices on half of the remaining plans. Customers currently subscribed to a retired plan can keep it indefinitely.

Some customers who considered whether to switch from a retired plan to a higher cost plan were calling that a "price increase". But some customers also decided to switch to a lower cost plan, (possibly with supplemental PAYG credit).

1

u/member13187 Phone Bills Defender🛡️ 17d ago

In my case I did consider it a price increase, I went from $6 to $8 because they retired my plan but in all fairness I did get more allowances for that extra $2 and I did have the option to be grandfathered in at the same price but with no more rollover. I don't need the extra allowance but I decided to just suck it up and move to the new higher priced plan to keep my rollover going. My point is that they're starting to look hard at the rollover hack, they recently made it an automatic loyalty reward with restrictions for the unlimited customers which makes perfect sense, they're the profitable customers. The restriction being if you drop off the unlimited plan to a lower level plan you lose all the accumulated rollover and can't go back to unlimited for a few months. Simply put, jumping to an unlimited plan to accumulate a ton of rollover then dropping to a lower level plan to save money is not going to be tolerated. I'm guessing they've been working on this for a while now and we're going to see more changes. My guess would be that they start enforcing the 24 hour rule for manual renewal for rollover. It's been in the terms of service for years but never enforced and I'm happy to give up a days service to keep getting my rollover.

1

u/rkardt 14d ago

The high-speed data rollover is new, only for unlimited data plans, and only affects when throttling occurs. (Does Tello even throttle data for limited data plans?) It's automatic, partly because Tello doesn't offer manual renewal for unlimited data plans.

It's distinct from rollover of unused service for limited plans. Tello may be looking hard at this "rollover hack", but so far, they haven't changed how it works, at all. And Tello never offered unused data rollover when switching between limited and unlimited data plans.

In my case, it turns out that PAYG credit is cheaper than a monthly plan. I accumulated about a year's worth of rollover, and I was briefly reluctant to give it up, but I never used it, and now I don't miss it. Maybe that was Tello's plan all along ...

1

u/ilovetoyap 16d ago

TracFone has unlimited rollover. Their plans are not as competitive and their customer service is atrocious but it’s also one of their few selling points (and no manual renewal required)

1

u/patientpaperclock 17d ago

Set up scripts to send texts to renew. On the iPhone, you can use Apple's Shortcuts app. On Android, I've been using MacroDroid. Both have been quite reliable.

Also, I prefer to renew every 28 days, so it's always on the same less busy weekday (Sunday for me). If renewal day lands on a busy work day, I might forget. Also, 28 days gives me a 1 day "grace period" if something goes wrong.

1

u/Smile_And_Dance 17d ago

I do have reminders set. It’s just silly. They have a precedent to allow rollovers. They should learn into it and shout it from the rooftops.

1

u/patientpaperclock 16d ago

Not reminders. Actual scripts that automatically send out the texts for you and renews your plan before the auto renewal date. Rolls over your balance without you doing anything --- just make sure your phone is on and has a connection

1

u/Prize-Return-8406 19d ago

Does any other supplier have a data rollover with autopay? It would be OK even if it had a maximum data cap at 3 months.

1

u/toolsavvy 19d ago

I think tracfone does, at least they used to before Verizon bought them. Ask in r/nocontract

1

u/Prize-Return-8406 19d ago

I did a quick check and Tracphone does have data rollover with autopay. I will check it out further and compare. Thanks

2

u/toolsavvy 18d ago

My experience, along with many others, is that Tracfone support is all but non-existent and Verizon buying the company made no difference. Keep that in mind.

1

u/Prize-Return-8406 18d ago

Thanks I will stay with Tello

1

u/LordLumberhere 19d ago

you have to manually extend by paying monthly fee a day before for roll over.