When An Employee Discount, Isn't

What a rip! It's no wonder people don't like Rogers.

As I mentioned last week, wifey started a new job. As with all new jobs, there are a lot of things to learn and figure out.

One such thing are the benefits offered!

One of the benefits offered by her new employer is 30% off Rogers Share Everything Plans. No, she doesn't work for Rogers. I know people who do, and they get 50% off their Rogers services.

Anyway, 30% off, huh? Sounds pretty good right? Well, just for fun, I built a Share Everything Plan on the Rogers website. I selected the $80 base plan, that includes 1GB of data. Wifey currently has 400MB of data with her plan at Fido, so double (and a bit) that is pretty reasonable, right? Unlimited calling Canada-wide is also an upgrade on wifey's plan as currently she gets 400 anytime minutes and free weekends and weeknights. I added another device to represent me moving over and... bam!

$135 a month! What!?

I was pretty sure I selected an $80 plan.

Ah... I see what happened. Rogers decided to add $55 for the extra device in this "shared" plan. I guess that's the rub. This shared plan is anything but. Really, you add another line and they charge you for it. It's really a shared rip off plan.

Even with 30% off, that still $94.50 a month. Not including taxes!!

Yikes! With taxes that's $106.79 for two lines. That's $53.40 for one line! One line!

Assuming the best case scenario, you're a Rogers employee with a 50% discount. Assuming that, and possibly a hidden price only employees can get of... let's say an additional 25% off, that's $80.10 a month. Of course, I pulled the 25% off from thin air. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a retention deal or something that managers can authorize that is much cheaper than the posted price on the website that employees can take advantage of.

Wifey's plan costs $35.10 + taxes a month. That's $39.66. My plan with Fido costs $113 a year*! That's $9.42 a month. Added together, that's $49.08 a month. I detailed my plan in the past, but in short I get unlimited text messaging and 100 minutes a year. I have no data. However, since I'm either at work or at home, I don't need data. The first year I had this plan, I used 0 minutes when calling. Like I mentioned before, people rarely call me.

$31 a month difference is $372 a year! Assuming, we can only get wifey's employee discount, that's a difference of $57.71 a month or $692.52 a year!

$692.52 is a lot of money for a lot of people. Yet, people are willing to hand this money out willy-nilly. Most of these people don't even have a 30% discount. They are losing more money because they are paying full price! Yikes!

If you absolutely spend a ton more on your mobile phone plan, then maybe this kind of benefit is for you. But if you're minimizing your costs, it's just better to stick to the status quo.

It's kind of like offering to cover 50% of your gym membership. Who pays for that when you can exercise at home?!

Oh wait, seems that's another benefit wifey gets now too.


*Really, my plan costs $94 a year. However, Fido only has $100 prepaid vouchers that don't expire in 30 or 60 days. The $100 voucher is good for 365 days, so that's the minimum to keep this plan. Plus $13 in taxes and my total each year is $113.