Holiday Gift Guide – Giveaway: kajeet Cell Phone

Gift Guide Category: Gifts for Kids, Tech/Electronic Gifts

A couple of weeks or so ago, I reviewed the kajeet cell phone service for kids (see here). I also gave you a heads up on a couple of great deals that are available right now too. Well, hang on – because the deals are better than ever right now, and I have a great giveaway for you as well!

First, to answer some questions that I know tend to come up about this service, and how it compares to other mobile phone service options for your family – here are kajeet’s responses…

Question:  Do costs for calls change depending on the time or day of the week, like with most other cell phone providers?

Answer:  No. kajeet’s low rates for calls and for texts stay that way throughout the day – 24/7. No hidden higher costs, no activation or termination fee and no extra charges for roaming.  Too simple!

Question: Why is kajeet a good option for my family?

kajeet is safe, affordable, and loved by kids.  Your kids will love the stylish phones that come with all kinds of fun features.  You will love the rate plans that start at $4.99 per month, and the full suite of parental controls that keep your kids safe and connected.

The kajeet exclusive parental controls are included as part of the base kajeet service – and do not cost extra.  These include ContactManager that lets you to decide what numbers and texts to allow, and which to block.  It also includes TimeManager that allows the phone service to be disabled during school, except for defined emergency numbers.  GPS Phone Locator allows you and your child to find the phone at any time.

The kajeet WalletManager allows you to create allowances to decide who – you or your child – pays for what, and how much should be spent.  Because parents have their own wallet, you can ensure your calls always get through (even if your child has run out of their allowance).

The kajeet service starts at just $4.99 per month – that’s what other contract services charge just for access to their parental controls!!

Question: Why not just add a line to my family plan?

Many people wonder why they should not just add a line to their family plan – it’s only 9.99 right?  And aren’t all the calls to mom free?

In reality, the first added line on a family plan ends up costing an additional $35/month on average.  Why?

• ~$9.99 per month for the additional line
• ~$6-10 for taxes, surcharges, and line fees for that extra line
• ~$20 for a plan upgrade.  Family plans actually deliver fewer minutes for the same price as an individual contract plan.  This means if you needed the minutes you had on your single line, you will have to upgrade to a higher priced plan just to get the same number of minutes you had with your single line.
• ~$4.99 for parental controls, if these are even offered.

And all that’s before text messages or calls to just one new friend on another network result in expensive overages that can easily cost many 10s if not hundreds of dollars in a single month!  Many parents end up “supersizing” their plans just to avoid this possibility – and that adds cost every month.

Yes, family plans do offer a single bill, but with kajeet you get one login for all your lines and you get the peace of mind of not only the exclusive Configurator parental controls, but also the budget management that prevents expensive overages.

Here’s a video that shows you how this all works:

So, what about those special deals??

Yep, I mentioned deals! And just in time for the holidays, when kajeet phones would make perfect gifts for the kids in your family. 

• First off – the “Bonus10” promo code is still active, and doesn’t expire until 2/1/09. Use this code when you purchase and activate a phone to receive a $10 bonus credit to your account (in addition to other credits you might get from other deals on the site – credit lasts until either fully used or the service is terminated).
• Also – the 10% discount that I mentioned in my previous post has been increased for the holidays! Either click on the ‘kajeet’ links in this post or use promo code ‘3GIRLS’ at checkout to receive 15% off of your order for any offer through the holidays!
• You can use both of these (Bonus10 + 3GIRLS) together through January 5th!
• Right now if you purchase a Samsung red m300 camera phone, you can get it for free after activation, and if you sign up for $25 auto refills of your minutes. You will receive the rebate if you activate the phone by January 5th, 2009 and after 2 auto refills have occurred.

Don’t want to wait for a rebate? Win one here!

Thanks to kajeet, I have the opportunity to offer a Samsung red m300 kajeet phone to one lucky reader! The phone includes a 4x digital zoom camera, speakerphone, bluetooth, parental controls, and includes $5 of starter airtime for new accounts (plus use the ‘Bonus10’ promo code mentioned above for $10 in additional credits!).

If you are interested in giving your child this phone as a holiday gift that you know they’ll love (as you will too!) this year, here are the rules:

1. Enter by visiting the kajeet page and leaving a comment here to tell me one feature of either the service or this particular phone that you really like – and who you would like to win the phone for. Please don’t just say ‘choose me’, or your entry will be discarded.
2. The contest will run until Saturday, December 6th at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be selected through random drawing, contacted by e-mail, listed on this post and also submitted to PRIZEY.Fetch. US entries only, please.
3. Please leave a valid e-mail address or other way to contact you! If you don’t wish to leave your e-mail address, please make sure that you leave a unique name and check back with PRIZEYWinners to see if you won. If the winner hasn’t responded within 3 days, an alternate winner will be chosen by random drawing.
4. If you’d like an extra entry or five, you can either:
   • Subscribe to my RSS feed (click on the orange icon in the upper right sidebar) or subscribe via e-mail – leave me a separate comment to let me know.
   • Put the button for my Holiday Gift Guide on your blog’s sidebar – the code for it is above.
   • Mention this contest on your blog with a link back to this post, and leave a separate comment with the link to your post so I can find it.
   • Either Twitter about, ‘Stumble’, ‘Digg’ or ‘Kirtsy’ this post – leave me a separate comment with your username at whichever site you chose (one extra entry).

So that’s a total of 5 comments/entries if you do all of the extra entry options.

Good luck! 

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED – the random number generator has chosen comment #32 as the winner:

Congratulations to Laura (no blog) who said, “I like that you can set it to not accept phone calls while at school. Last year my son had his phone taken away cuz a creditor kept calling his phone during school hours. (My son doesn’t owe any one money!)“! I will be e-mailing you shortly to work out the details.

UPDATE: The original winner has not responded to either of the two e-mails that I sent, so I am drawing a new winner.  This time the random number generator has chosen comment #59 as the winner:

Congratulations to Sharla who said, “I really like the GPS system where you can get online and find where your child is at any time. I would give this to my son! Thanks“! I will be e-mailing you shortly to work out the details.