Bought 1GB on phone but doesn't connect to interenet?

What type of plan. Usually those passes are for plans with limited data and it's to add more data.

Have you tried signing into your Mytmobile and go to line settings, data and see if there an option to add data?

gramps28 wrote:

What type of plan. Usually those passes are for plans with limited data and it's to add more data.

Have you tried signing into your Mytmobile and go to line settings, data and see if there an option to add data?

Yes, that's how I added the data, right on the my.t-mobile.com site. I go there and it says the data pass is activated, but I can't get any data on my phone.

What type of phone do you have? What plan do you have? We need more information to help you.

gramps28 wrote:

What type of phone do you have? What plan do you have? We need more information to help you.

Pixel 4a (the 4G version) non-carrier (bought from Google directly).

Simple Choice 2Gb per month plan,

which later I was promoted to unlimited data by T-Mobile,

which later I stupidly at one point wanted to have a break from the internet, so opted out of data only to find I cannot turn data back on, neither unlimited nor 2Gb a month, I did this over a year ago.

so I thought I only really need mobile data from time to time, so I thought I'd just buy a data pass, which is right there in the account options online and the $10 for the data pass was apparently added to my monthly bill. I also got a text message saying it was added to my phone. "Thanks you for purchasing a T-Mobile 7Day 1GB USA CAN MEX Data Pass, available for use as of 04/27/2023.

I can see my add-ons on my.t-mobile.com:

I can go to my line with my phone number. I have 4 lines on the account, the others have unlimited data still, but this is the page "Manage data and add-ons" under my name and phone number.

Monthly data only has one option “No Data.”

Under that it says “One-time Data Pass” and under that the first part says “On-Network 1 Week - 1 GB, Available for 5 days 9 hours.”

Under that are options to buy more Data Passes, then Cloud Storage Options then Services for my line.

Thanks! I will try to get ahold of T-Mobile if I get time today. Anyhow, I got to go. I got a long day ahead of me.

AGAIN, no data/internet over wireless!

Apparently they got the internet working during that 1GB 1week data pass I bought. But now that it's over as of Thursday afternoon, I no longer have data again. According to my.t-mobile.com, I've used 0.04MB of data this period.

SUMMARY:

Simple Choice 2GB plan > later upgraded to unlimited by T Mobile for free > later I selected no data and option for unlimited disappeared > still no data even after getting ahold of T Mobile twice > Also, still paying the same as I did 7 years ago when I got the plan.

I spoke too soon. After restarting my phone again it now has internet! Woohoo! I have no idea why it stopped working for a couple days, but it is working fine now. No Data Pass needed, just the unlimited data as before!

Well, my data is gone again. The only two options I have in "manage add-ons" are 1 Day 500 MB and 1 Week 1 GB.

Mind you the other three lines on the same account with the same North America Simple Choice plan have a ton of options which aren’t available on my line, including where it says unlimited data or no data:

HeavenM wrote:

What a rollercoaster! I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for the data to be so unpredictable for you. 

Being on a retired plan is great because you are paying a lot less than others that started service after that plan was gone. Unfortunately, since you removed the data feature a year ago, there isn't a way to get it to stick back on. Sounds like the rep that you messaged with a couple days ago tried to add the feature. Once it is added, it usually starts working pretty quickly, but periodically the system does an eligibility check and would have removed the feature. Couple that with the fact that you had a data pass added, it sounds like there was a lot of back and forth on the provisioning side of things on making data work or not. 

Once the data pass is added to your line, it should kick in automatically within about 2 hours. Restarting the phone after the 2 hour mark is a good practice to make sure that the phone is syncing with the account changes. I like that you added the pass the day before you really needed it just in case there was any delay in provisioning time. Since the passes have a data cap, you do want to make sure that the phone is not "hungry" for data at the time. Like make sure that you update the phone and apps on wifi and closing all your apps before adding the pass to your account. If you have things running or waiting for updates, they can kick on as soon as your data pass is active and eat it up. It sounds like you were managing things properly because you were checking your data usage and it was only 0.04MB. 

I am not sure why the data pass was not working right away. Usually, a care rep can take a look at the account to see if there are any discrepancies. They might remove the data pass and readd it, but if that is something they talk about, then you would want to monitor the account to make sure that there is not a duplicate charge. 

Hope this helps a bit. 

Thank you! I see, and I was suspecting I had forfitted the data when I had selected no data about a year ago. So that clears up that.

Too bad the data pass didn't work when I needed it. Oh well.

Now I’m contemplating if I should stay with what I have or change to the Essential Savings plan. Could I change plans? It looks like Essential Savings is exactly the same thing I have now only $10 more per month (except a data cap that’s still way more than what we use).