Mint Mobile is offering what’s possibly the goofiest one-day promotion I’ve ever seen. Customers can pay $2,500 upfront for 25 years of service. Here’s how Mint explains the deal:
Years ago, former pro baseball player Bobby Bonilla signed one of the most famous contracts in sports history, ensuring he would be paid more than $1 million every July 1st for 25 years. So to celebrate Bobby’s big payday, we’ve partnered with him to offer the Bobby Bonilla Plan:
25 years of Mint Mobile premium wireless service for just $100 a year. That’s right, you can lock in Mint Mobile until it’s time to move to Mars.
You can find more information or order the plan on Mint’s website. As best as I can tell, the plan is real. Besides the unusual time commitment and the price tag, the plan looks identical to Mint’s usual plan with 4GB of data, unlimited minutes, and unlimited texts.
An Awful Deal
25 years for $2,500 works out to roughly $8 per month, about half the usual price of Mint’s 4GB plan. It’s an awful deal though. Every $1,000 invested at 8% interest will be worth close to $5,000 after 25 years.
Perhaps more interestingly, it’s unclear if Mint can honor the plan through the full term. Companies get acquired or go out of business regularly in this industry. Mint probably won’t be around in a few decades. I won’t be surprised if people who buy the 25-year plan eventually get bought out early. I also won’t be surprised if no one buys the plan and we never figure out what might have happened.
Disclosure: Mint is offering me a big commission if I refer a customer to this plan. Seriously though, don’t buy it.
7/2/2021 Update: The promotion is now over. I shared a follow-up post here.
You have to account for inflation though, right? I’m sure Mint won’t be offering their current prices in 2040
Yeah. And there will also be all sorts of technological changes over the decades that’ll affect services and prices. I’m just trying to make the general point that you shouldn’t only consider nominal dollar amounts when locking up money today to get some benefit far in the future.