InReach Service price increase.

In the same email –

“Are there plan options without the Annual Program Fee?”

“Yes. To keep your device active year-round for a lower monthly cost and no Annual Program Fee, you may switch to an Annual Plan. Just like with your Freedom Plan, you can move up or down between different Annual Plans without charge. Annual Plans have a minimum initial term of 12 months.”

This verbage is terrible. The “Annual Plan” referred to above is called the “Contract Plan” (which I found hidden behind a “Learn More” button) and is available for $11.95/month, but I can’t tell you how to find it.      Sorry.

Garmin Chat can send you instructions. Ask how to find the “Contract Plan”.

I’m a year-around, non-tracking user.  Unlimited Basic Messages, 10 Custom Messages/month, and SOS work for me.  YMMV.

PS: Don’t make a change until a couple of days before your billing date. If your Billing date is the 15th and you make a change on the 4th you loose 10 days of coverage. (Don’t ask me how I know.)

I use the annual plan as well.  It made the most sense, cost wasn’t terrible and I’m out year round.  Occasionally I have to pay a little additional fee, usually if I set up tracking for folks to follow along on a longer trip and even then it’s usually not much.

$144 a year for the option of communicating out of cell range (75%+ of Montana :)) and the piece of mind if things go sideways seems pretty reasonable.

Interesting. Maybe I missed that email. I usually drop down to the ‘safety’ plan in the winter, but even bumping up to the ‘recreation’ plan in the summer is dumb for me because I never share my track points with anyone and rarely text. At most I use wx2inreach@gmail.com with a preset (free) message a couple of times per month for weather on trips and text the skipper on the boat a few times while we are ashore elk hunting in the fall. I’m definitely switching to an ‘annual safety’ plan. Thanks, I didn’t know about that.

FYI: InReach plans

I activated my new inReach on December 2nd for the “old” $24.95 – Just in time apparently!

Got the same “inReach Freedom Plan Price Update” (hah) notice late last night. They might be trickling out emails to keep from getting spam-crammed.

Another gotcha in a world now filled with them. Doing battle with Verizon cellular plans right now. Just one more bad customer service experience away from dumping them. At least I’ll have a new communications company to yell at, because they’re all terrible.

Grumble.

— Rex