Ryan Reynolds-owned carrier will be giving away wireless service during the Super Bowl
The conditions of the deal/s may have changed since the initial publishing of this post.
This kind of flew under our radar when it was announced a couple of months ago, but Ryan Reynolds (yes, THE Ryan Reynolds) owns a stake in one of America's innumerable low-cost prepaid wireless providers. What we couldn't possibly miss, however, was the movie star's latest "announcemint" on Twitter backed by a full-page ad in today's print edition of The New York Times (apparently, that's still a thing).
Basically, Reynolds opted for this presumably cheap publicity stunt to promote a mind-blowing deal coming in a few days over the traditional advertising path of paying millions of dollars for 30 seconds of air time during the Super Bowl. The way Mint Mobile's new owner and celebrity spokesperson sees it, said millions of dollars would be better spent offering hundreds of thousands of new customers free access to the mobile virtual network operator's services.
That's precisely what you'll be able to get on Sunday, February 2, between kickoff and the final whistle of the big game pitting the San Francisco 49ers against the Kansas City Chiefs at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. If that's too vague for you, the official promotion webpage spells out the very short period of time during which new Mint Mobile customers will be allowed to join the T-Mobile-powered network for free for a full three months.
Specifically, you will apparently be able to sign up starting at 3:15 pm PST until 7:15 pm PST, when Mint Mobile figures the football game awaited by an entire nation should be just about wrapped up. The deal is pretty much as straightforward as it sounds, its terms and conditions are extremely simple, and there are essentially no strings attached.
A credit card and a temporary payment of $0.01 will be required to verify you're a real person... with a valid credit card, and even your penny will be refunded within no more than 7 business days. You'll also get a whopping 45 days to activate your new Mint Mobile account from the time of "purchase", and naturally, the complimentary services on offer here are the ones typically included in the carrier's most affordable plan.
We're talking 3 gigs of high-speed 4G LTE data, unlimited data at "lower speeds", unlimited nationwide talk and text, free mobile hotspot (counted towards your standard data bucket), a 3-in-1 SIM card kit, and Wi-Fi calling and text functionality. All of this is normally available for $15 a month, which already feels "almost suspiciously reasonable", in the words of none other than Deadpool. But you can now save even those 45 bucks and choose whether to stay with Mint Mobile and pay crazy low prices for wireless service or leave the network no questions asked at the end of this 90-day promotional period.
Things that are NOT allowed: