Unable to get mobile tethering through laptop to play/connect to online games

I've been unable to get mobile tethering through laptop to play/connect to online games. I also tried to connect to my home VPN using tethering and that's being blocked by T-Mobile as well. Anybody have any fixes for this or is it time for me to jump ship to a better carrier? I pay a lot for the additional Hotspot data, and if I can't use it to connect to the VPN for work or for gaming, then what is the point of having hotspot?