Movida Gets Cheaper

Well, I take it back...there is something to post about today: Movida.

The carrier, which is the foremost in selling old Sprint handsets as their own phones (LG 225 for $50 if I remember correctly, LG 125 for $30, Sanyo 200 and UTStarCom 7025 for $30 I guess), has now started a small, Latino-oriented portal for buying ringtones, graphics and games, plus their previous text messaging services, and has redone their rate structure slightly, aiming for more revenue per month and settling for less per minute...

They started a new $35 refill, the main purpose of which is to give people a 140 minute a month plan with unlimited nights and weekends (though on Movida they still start at 9) I guess. But other than that the monthly rate structure remains the same.

The regular prepaid structure has changed, however. All airtime cards now give 10 cents a minute anytime, and all except the 30-day $20 card expire in 60 days, for a minimum of $15 a month, up from $10. But hey, if you use more than 75 minutes a month this plan is better than the previous one, and it's really nice to see plans with 10 cents a minute coming to all the major carriers (PagePlus, T-Mobile, Net10, now Movida) with no fees to get there.

Another really neat thing is the new Movida Amigos program, askin to T-Mobile's Gold Rewards. After you've spent $200 on Movida airtime (if you're paying the minimum that is now just over a year and a half of service), you call up Movida and they start giving you one point for every dollar you spend on a Movida airtime card. These points can be redeemed as soon as you buy even the $20 card, but it's best to wait...because 20 points gets you $2 in credit, 30 gets you $4 and 50 gets you $8. So if you're willing to spend $50 on airtime before redeeming your points you get $58 total, which translates into a cool ~8.6 cents a minute on the "MoviDIME" plan. Dunno, but that beats any other Sprint prepaid by a nice margin. And if you use the monthly plan, that turns the $30 a month, 120-minute plan into one that's effectively $25.90 or thereabouts...not bad for 120 minutes and unlimited nights and weekends starting at 9 p.m.

So yeah, Movida is stepping it up.