New and Improved with Some Minor Side Effects

I was set.
I was going to be stubborn.
I was going to stick to my guns and just save up the money and buy a new cell phone outright.
Screw Verizon and their Nazi ways.

I've bitched about it before and so that I don't do it again I'll just sum it all up.
Verizon used to give you a credit of $100 every two years to upgrade your phone.
In fact they would let you upgrade early, at 18 months, with that same credit.
Then they dropped it to a $50 upgrade credit instead.
Then they made it a strict 24 months, no early upgrades.
Now they charge you $30 to upgrade your phone.
That's a $130 swing in the last few years.

Not only that, but in the good old days when they changed their shit they let you be grandfathered in.  It was a sign of good faith to those who have been with them for a long time.
Now they are bigger than Jesus and know that it doesn't matter if they piss a few people off and lose a few customers (after all, a lot of them will come crawling back when they see the shitty service they get with AT&T and Sprint and whoever else amiright?).
So, the newest thing is that when you "upgrade" your phone (buy it at a discounted rate) and you sign a new contract you are forced into changing your plan to something they currently offer.  You can no longer be grandfathered into whatever you had previously.

This is the part that kinda irks me and mainly just because I don't like it.  It won't really affect me terribly much over time, it just annoys me because it doesn't need to be done.

I have unlimited data that I pay $29.99 per month for.  The current 2TB data plan is $29.99 per month. There is quite a disparity there.

So, that was my "short" version and with a whole lot less profanity than I planned even!

I was recently browsing on Amazon and looking at phones and I went through the motions just to see what their system would say.
The funny thing about Amazon is that they have not changed since Verizon changed their terms.  So, when Amazon asked me to pick a data plan they gave me the option of "Keep your unlimited data at $29.99/month (upgrade only)."
And when all was said and done, right before hitting checkout, they give a summary of your new phone with your new plan and my plan stayed exactly the same, same pricing and same data plan.

I do realize that this is going to be automatically switched over in Verizon's system and I'm going to have to call and bitch up a shit storm and asked to speak to managers and their managers and their managers in an attempt to keep my unlimited using the excuse that the only reason I upgraded was because everything clearly stated that I would get to keep my same data plan at the same rate.

Blah blah blah.
Long story short I got a new phone almost based solely on the fact that it interacts with my new Fitbit Flex via Bluetooth for updates so that I can have up to the minute information.

More on the Fitbit Flex later - it (along with the new phone) is my next step towards taking fitness and my health more seriously.