Wow I've been overpaying by going into a store. I use T-Mobile pay as you go whenever I come to the States (twice a year for 2-week stints usually).
Do you know if I buy a SIM card and activate it for that deal will I be able to let it lapse and then re-up it when I come back in 6 months? Or will I have to buy a new SIM card every time?
I was on that plan and let it expire. My account page still displays the plan, while noting that it's unfunded and I can't use it, so it seems that you can let it lapse and re-up. I've been curious whether that will still be true come the new year.
I have been living in London since 2011, so I let me old T-Mobile plan lapse. When I came back my SIM was dead, so I bought a pay-as-you-go SIM in the store. They told me if I don't top it up every 3 months it is not guaranteed to work. However after I am typically gone for six month cycles, and the last 2 times it was still active.
I'm very keen on trying this new plan though as $3/day on top of pay as you go is not a good value on a 2 week trip. I'd be very happy to just pay $30 and get a reasonable amount of mins/texts along with great data.
There's no device restrictions, plenty of people use this with Nexus 4s and the like. The catch is you can't get it in a T-Mobile store.
If you bring your own device, you have to either buy a SIM from T-Mobile.com and then put it in the device, or you can buy a SIM card kit from Wal-Mart.
I have this on my Nexus 4. You can either order a sim online or (as I couldn't buy it with a card registered to a P.O. box) buy a 20$ phone at walmart and swap the sim into your device.
Most of the time the guy at the Walmart phone store will have a spare SIM card lying around and will give it to you for free. That happened for both my phone and my wife's phone.
This plan is only available for devices purchased from Wal-Mart or devices activated on T-Mobile.com
It seems to imply device restrictions.