T-Mobile holiday promotion: Free Companion Flight 2008
We’re sure there are a few more handsets to come from T-Mobile this holiday season, but we just got word that the boys in pink have special promotion planned as well. Dubbed Free Companion Flight 2008, T-Mobile has a special treat in store for new and existing customers alike. Here’s how it works:
When someone activates, renews or migrates to a new 2-year service agreement between November 19th and December 24th, he or she will be eligible to receive a Free Companion Flight, ie one free round trip flight, when an additional ticket is purchased at the full fare price through a special T-Mobile website (www.FlyWithT-Mobile.com – not yet live). 112 origins and 110 destinations will be covered by the promotion and they will be spread throughout the cities detailed on the image seen above.
Of course there are some restrictions involved but nothing too crazy. Essentially everyone is eligible as long as they’re not on a business / corporate account. Postpaid, FlexPay Annual Contract, Take Control, SmartAccess and KidConnect accounts are all fair game and each account is eligible for up to five free companion flights. Sweet!
Thanks Gman!
I agree. I am trying to book from Denver to New York for May. The price though tmobile is over 100 more then getting two tickets though united. I wrote to them, and they said I can have it reviewed for a price match – but didn’t give me the contact information on who to send the request to. I sent it back to the person that wrote me the first time, havn’t heard back yet (4 days).
Since finding this site, I resent my email to pricematch@tlcwm.com. We will see….
My husband got a letter in the mail saying that because he’s in “their top5 %” of longtime customers they are making him this offer “there’s no need to renew your contract or buy a phone”, The web address on the letter takes you to a page making the same “top5″ offer but if you read the small print at the bottom of the page it says to claim a free companion flight you have to renew. A mistake? I wondered. I started to fill out the registration and noticed that I was required to tick the “I have read and accept the terms and conditions” box – which when I checked had the same renewal requirement. Smells fishy to me. Fishy enough to make me switch to another provider in Feb when my contract is up. First rule of marketing – don’t cheat or even appear that you might be trying to cheat your longtime customers – they vote with their feet.
I’ve been a customer of TM for a long time. They sent us a very nice letter saying they were extending the free flight offer to us as a loyal customer. Sounded like a great deal. Until I tried to book a flight. From Portland to Milwaukee they want $731 for a single ticket. Travelocity and Expedia both have the same flight for $267. I can buy the two tickets for less than what they want. I had expected the “Full Faire” to be higher but this is rediculous. As long as the single ticket was less than what 2 would cost online I would have went for it. Nice useless gift for all my years as a customer.
such BS!!!! i got the offer for free companion flight as top 5 member so i dont need to renew my fone or anything like that… so there’s no contract because i’ve been a longtime customer. it sounded great.
i was going to book a flight for my bro and i to hit Orlando in april… now i live in NY so round trip tix are about $280 to orlando… i went to look thru the special website TM gave me… for one ticket it was $690… and my companion flies free… so basically they’d charge me more than i would paid for at another site.. such a scam!!!!
This is such a waste of time and a scam…we’ve been with t-mobile for over 6 years and feel so scammed
I just want to know if anyone has spoken to T-Mobile in regards to the Promo scam and what has been said. I was going to call, but not sure if its even worth it.
Thanks
In reply to Thumper
“Hey Bozo’s if you would have read the FAQ’s you would be a little more informed before you start bad mouthing someone/something!”
—
That is right. they do indeed match the price with only a 15% markup. And since you have to call in to TLC to do the “price match” they charge you an extra $30 a ticket for booking over the phone with an agent as opposed to the 12.75 or something for online services.
They have marked up the prices forcing their customers to call in.
So, buying one ticket on Orbitz for my flight was 216 after tax, 168 before.
168+15% = 193.20
193.20 + $60 = $253.20
So, do you get a discount for your “free” ticket.
Yes.
Do you get your ticket for Free?
No.
From the FAQ page at flywith-mobile.com:
“TLC guarantees that if a fare listed in the Zone Chart exceeds a published rate, on an available flight by 25%, the Zone Fare will be reduced to match the competition, plus 15%. (Example: If TLC’s Zone Fare Chart lists a fare of $250, and you find the same flight for $150, which is 60% more, the Zone Fare will be considered for adjustment. Upon TLC’s verification of the fare and availability, TLC will match the $150 fare plus 15%; therefore, for this example, the zone fare would be $172.50. You can then book the flight, pay $172.50 for the first fare, and get the Companion Flight for Free. The combination of two (2) flights/tickets through the T-Mobile Free Companion Flight promotion presents a savings of $127.50 or 43%. All standard taxes and fees will apply. If you would like to submit a price match for consideration please fax the find to 617-671-0500 or email it to pricematch@tlcwm.com.”
So you can fax or mail it in, not booking over the phone and guarantee that your price won’t be more than 15% of other sites.
Indeed, the Full Fare Price is the catch! This one ticket you MUST purchase via a shady t-mobile site is always more expensive than ANY coach tickets purchased on any normal site. TOTAL RIP OFF!! Again consumer is treated as an idiot.
Just wanted to confirm that even the pricematch system is a scam. They added more fees that were listed in their T&C (which alone adds $60 (yep, SIXTY) to each transaction + 15% + taxes)). After hours of disagreeing, they finally offered to pricematch a $240 ticket that included $20 in taxes to $455. So, I got two tickets for $455 that are available to purchase anyway for about the same price! That AFTER hours of hassle on the phone and a two week waiting period! SCAM, SCAM, SCAM! Anyone else face trouble and get anything resolved?
This companion fare thing is a total ripoff. I checked a flight from where I live to New York City (mind you following the guidelines of a Saturday night stay that is one of the catches) and the fare was outrageous. For one ticket and some bogus additional charges for 1st and 2nd passenger it came to $754+. I looked on the Continental Airlines website at the exact same flight and times and destination and the flight was $358 per person…what a ripoff TMO is trying to pull one over on us…
i need it thank you
i need someone who can send me a free game boy thank you everyone i hope u send me the game boy
I actually had a fairly decent experience with the Price Match. I found 4 tickets from SAT to ONT (onatrio, CA) on Orbitz for $244 each on Sunday (versus $560 each on their site), emailed the info to the Price Match site that day, and just got off the phone with them today (Tuesday) and was able to book the 4 for a total of less than $700!! The e-tickets were emailed to me in 20 minutes. I would have spent over $1000 flying my whole family. No it’s not EXACTLY “buy one, get one free” but with all the fees airline companies charge nowadays, I think I got a deal! And I’ve got 3 more PINs to use to visit NYC this summer, and Vegas one weekend with just hubby and me, no kiddos!
That’s all, one email Sunday and she called me back today. You just need to read the T&C before you start complaining about things that simply aren’t accurate!
Also regarding the “buy 30 days in advance”, I was worried because the 30 days started from that Sunday I checked the fares (its a last minute surprise trip for my mother in laws birthday) so I thought they may give me a hard time, saying the 30 days needed to start from TODAY, the day I actually booked the flight, but no problems at all! It was a very short phone call, she had already verified the info and simply broke down the prices for me and I paid with my CC.
IT’S A SCAM!!! Because I have a Family Plan, I get 2 tickets, however TLC is saying I only have one. After 3 weeks of calling everyone (see below), I still don’t have my 2 tickets. When I did try to book my flight (before I knew I only had one ticket) they wanted to charge me $86.00 for one flight–they call this FREE??? $25 is for processing and the rest is for fees!! This was just from MD to FL. Expedia.com was offering the RT flight for $149.00. Don’t fall for the scam. Oh, when you do call with questions, you get the run-around. All they do is give you another number to call. When I asked to speak to a supervisor, that got me no where too. They claim that they can only send an e-mail. Don’t use TMobile. The coverage sucks and their “special” promotions aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.
What world are YOU living in??? Paying $60-300 in taxes and fees is NOT free!!
Buyer Beware!!!!!!! don’t fall into this trap. TOTAL SCAM…. I’ve been with TM for 5+ yrs so i thought they would be honest and trustworthy. They weren’t. I would like to file a class action lawsuit against them. Before i consult a lawyer anyone have info on how its done? or ideas on how i should go about it. Thanks
Well I got two booking slips, sent one in in August and they said it was filled out incorrectly so they wouldn’t honor it…but they never sent it back to me to redo. So now I wanted to use both of them by the end of March so I’ve been going back and forth and back and forth and threatening them to go on Channel 8 news where a consumer can voice their problem and usually get what they need and also threatening to sue them. I have had it I’m so stressed with this but every time they transfer me to a supervisor their mailbox is full and I’m back at pt. 1. Help….I’m getting gray hairs as we speak….Patti
Did you ever get in touch with anyone…I’m going through the exact thing right now.I was transferred to the “Presidents Office” only to be told I would have to deal directly with the travel company offering a fair price on this ticket….ha the price was DOUBLE what I found on the acutal airlines website….it’s been a total hassle.
Oh gawd I can’t believe I found this site… I did the promo for the free flight.. the promo specifically states if you purchase 2 or more phones you would get TWO flight vouchers… well that was October of 07 and I am STILL fighting them to this day to take my vacation. This is how screwed up T-mobile is. all three phones that I bought and started up were in my name. 1st they sent ONE voucher in my fiance’s name which doesn’t even appear anywhere in the contract, or with the service.
2nd to this day I still want to take my vacation this next month and when I get through to TLC and T-mobile everyone of them says,”well I don’t understand why you haven’t received your second one you jumped through all the hoops you needed too. Let me get ahold of our internal services and find out what is going on.” in which that is the last I hear from them until I call. the booking company wants to book it I go through this every week I say have you received the second voucher.. “well no just this one”.. then its TLC’s fault, TLC says its T-mobile’s fault.
quite frankly I believe its T-mobile’s fault I honestly believe that T-mobile didn’t believe that they were going to receive the huge response that they got and are trying to get out of paying the huge amounts that it created. Oh I know the promotion is supposed to end march of 09 but.. I read above someone went to the BBB hmm I believe THAT is the way to go OR everyone should get together and start a class action lawsuit against T-mobile
T-mobile is BAD very BAD Shame on you, T-mobile for scamming, shamming, and slamming your ‘customers.’ The idea behind the promotion is to gain loyalty from customers.. not to unethically shoo them away.
shame on you T-mobile
T-MOBILE FREE FLIGHT VOUCHERS ARE A SCAM! Both flights are supposed to be free. I filled out the form for both flights online, and received a confirmation email saying someone would call me regarding travel arrangments. No one called. When I called, I spent hours going back and forth between T-Mobile reps and the concierge service. They had no record of my companion’s name. They said to call back with the confirmation number and that would be my “golden ticket.” When I called back with the number, they said they couldn’t look up anything with that number. Long story short, hours of wasted time and no one could do anything for me. I extended my contract for this promotion and got nothing. Maybe it works for some, but the disappointment if you’re one of the ones who are scammed makes it not worth it.
I had the exact same thing happen: I was supposed to get 2 free flights because I have the family plan. When I called in, they only had a record of my registering one voucher, even though I registered both. I spent hours on the phone getting the runaround. Such a scam! I will never use T-Mobile again.
I am ALSO still trying to get the 2007 FREE FLIGHTS- since November. The same excuses- not our fault- we will get back to you(but no one does)- there is no supervisor to contact- your account doesn’t exist-There is NO ONE at either T-Mobile or TLC that can or will do their job of processing the free flights. Now it is March and the flights must be taken by the end of the month- and reservation requests have to be in TLC’s hands 30 days in advance-how convenient that they strung us all along for months until it is too late!!!!!!!! I would love to find out if any class action is taken. This is truly a shame.
i filed a written complaint and hope a class action law suit will follow. what a scam. do the same
This is crazy. I want to book a couple of flights from Columbus to either Miami or Ft. Lauderdale, or elsewhere in Florida. $600+ for the two tickets, but I can get on kayak and buy BOTH for less than $350. I went to the final step, and yep, the $600+ price is what the final price is.
14 years with Tmobile, since they were a little company known as Aerial, a $175/ mo, and this is what I get.
Wow. Not happy.