New 2024 inReach Consumer Subscription Plan Changes question

Aren´t the Flex plans only for enterprise subscriptions? The normal user plans are the consumer plans. There is the Enabled just not listed as a possible plan for consumers. It has to be buried somewhere...Or I don´t understand the whole new plan area...

Either they forgot to list the plan for consumers there and it is then perhaps only available via the Messenger app (etc), if you already have a plan and then want to change? But only Garmin can answer that...

Just going to toss this in here as another consideration. Based on forum traffic, it appears that the back end plan change/billing change/activation platform has become completely unreliable. There are repeated outages, scheduled maintenance, unscheduled maintenance and so forth which prevent or significantly delay new accounts, plan changes, activations, and so forth. If you need to do one of those things, you should do so well in advance of need. By which I mean a week or more. NOT a day or two. Garmin appears to be unable to fix this.

Probably that’s why the fees are going up to pay for all this maintenance crap. Maybe something is happening that we are not aware of yet. Why so many outages lately? Upgrades for new stuff or problematic old stuff?

I would say the new plans, new changing possibilities etc. have been done in the background while the system was still live…and this might have caused the issues there.

It says the Enabled option will be presented when you go to change or cancel your current plan, I guess that’s the only way to see it. In one of my previous posts though it still shows a suspend fee at the bottom??? I think they are trying to hide the Enabled feature as best they can.

The Enabled plan for consumers is not mentioned on the inReach subscription product page (why though?) but it is mentioned in Frequently Asked Questions on September 2024 inReach Consumer Subscription Plan Changes:

yes that seems very likely, and could very well explain all the recent issues with the billing and activation system

Right, as JungleJim said, your 2 months/year scenario only applies if it is two months in a row.

For me, with 1 summer month and 1 winter month, it would be effectively an activation fee + monthly fee for each month of service. And I might want another spring and/or fall trip too.

The easy way to look at it is that the $8 enabled rate times 5 months equals the $40 activation fee. So a gap less than 5 months isn't worth canceling and reactivating anymore. For me, with 2 trips in opposite season, they've forced me onto a continuous plan, if I don't abandon inReach altogether.

The only plus I can see for me is that I could actually just use the enabled rate for my trips. The $8 rate leaves $7 on the table to cover pay-as-you go messages (compared to the $15 essential rate), and I am unlikely to send 70+ check-ins or messages in a typical trip.

Yeah I agree, it is weird the Enabled plan is not listed. Oversight or purposefully steering consumers to a more expensive plan?