T-Mobile has been making a lot of controversial and highly praised moves lately, leaving some consumers a bit confused about how to think of them. One of the moves that garnered a good bit of commotion, mostly good, was a new upgrade initiative called JUMP! On Demand. Combined with the traditional equipment installment plans that most customers used, it quickly eclipsed a lesser-used upgrade program, called SCORE!. SCORE! was structured somewhat similarly to a traditional upgrade program that came with a contract, but with a few twists. Customers would pay $5 per month and in return, they would be able to pick up a discount on a new phone. After six months, a customer could scoop up an entry-level phone at no cost. After one year, they were given the opportunity for a steep discount, up to $150, on any phone of their choice. One year after its inception, however, SCORE! is being done away with.
New signups are already off-limits, but existing SCORE! customers can continue paying and racking up the benefits until the end of 2016. SCORE! customers who are nearing or at their redemption period will see the charge lifted from their bill after they redeem their SCORE! benefit. Be warned that the benefit will expire if you do not use it within 60 days. If, however, you happened to have signed up for SCORE! recently enough to not have a full year saved up by then, you’ll automatically be given the full year’s worth of discount credit when the $5 charge for SCORE! is removed from your bill as of the January 2017 cycle. Existing customers cannot cash out the benefit in between redemption tiers, nor can they have both a free entry-level device and a big discount on any device.
TmoNews reached out to T-Mobile to ask about the program’s demise and was greeted with details about the JUMP! On Demand program, meaning that the presence of the superior JUMP! On Demand was likely SCORE!’s undoing. Folks with bad credit or who don’t want to pay for a device over time have lost a nifty way to get their hands on a new phone, but most customers already on EIP or JUMP! On Demand are unlikely to miss SCORE!