Ran a search, couldn't find this, if it's there, please point me to it.

I'm thinking of switching to Cingular. I'm not sure how this works and cannot find a detailed explanation anywhere, so I'm hoping those with Cingular experience can help me.

I'm confused as to how Cingular prioritizes the minutes you use based on their type (anytime, rollover, etc).

It would make sense to me that, because rollover minutes expire after 12 months, they should be charged before your new anytime minutes are charged. That way you are always using your oldest minutes and preserving newer minutes for as long as possible, you know, first in first out.

The only thing I can find on the website is this:

Minutes will be depleted according to usage in the following order: night and weekend minutes, mobile to mobile minutes, anytime minutes and rollover minutes.

A couple things about this confuse me. First of all, I read this and it means to me that if I'm on Cingular and my girlfriend is too, and I call her at 11 PM, it's going to use my evening and weekend minutes, not my mobile to mobile. Based on how they outwardly advertise it, I believe this is absolutely false, and that makes me question the accuracy of the entire depletion list.

More importantly, it also suggests that you cannot even begin to use your rollover minutes until you have completely exhausted your new anytime minutes. This seems rather wasteful, as you're forsaking older minutes that expire sooner than the minutes you are using. But I can also see them setting it up this way from a shady business practice standpoint to try to trick you into going over.

Bottom line, if I have 200 rollover minutes available, and 450 new anytime minutes, and I make a 30 minute call at 2 in the afternoon, is it going to hit against my rollover minutes or my new minutes?

Thanks for the input.

 

IMHO your 30 minute call will come out of the 450 minutes. Not until you exhast those will your rollover minutes be used.

 

and you've 11 months to use those.