Free WiFi on Gogo Enabled Flights
Let's kick things off with some magenta colored hacks
Welcome!
Hi! Welcome to my newest newsletter - ProductivityToday. Inspired by FintechToday (thanks Ian Kar!).
As I’ve begun spending more time meeting people who have worked in the productivity world for much longer than myself, I wanted to find a medium where I could share a collection of interesting life and productivity hacks.
I’ll do my best to share a new tip at least once per week, but if I come across something that is extra fascinating, I’ll drop a second post.
Today’s life hack: getting free WiFi on Gogo enabled flights
This is personally my favorite life hack, so at the risk of disappointing you with every post after this one, I’m sharing this to kick the newsletter off.
Some background:
A few years back, T-Mobile and Gogo teamed up to offer T-Mobile One customers one hour of free WiFi on flights, and unlimited WiFi for T-Mobile customers who pay for the OnePlus program ($10/mo extra). I used to have T-Mobile OnePlus, but switched to AT&T several months ago because of better coverage - thus I had to find a way to get my free WiFi still without paying $20 in-flight.
When I flew AlaskaAir R/T between Newark and San Francisco last week, I used this handy trick and it worked flawlessly.
Here’s how it works:
Before you fly, try to figure out which of your friends are most likely to have T-Mobile. I do this by going on Facebook (does anyone even use Facebook anymore) and seeing which of my friends have liked T-Mobile’s page. My working theory is that people who actually ‘like’ T-Mobile on Facebook are more likely to have T-Mobile, because who likes brand pages on Facebook?
From here, I make a list of friends who have ‘liked’ and I have their cell in my phone. Thanks Chris!
Next, when you’re actually on flight, connect to the in-flight WiFi and navigate to the main connection page where you can select your WiFi plan. If you flight is GoGo enabled, there is usually a T-Mobile option for an hour of free data and unlimited text when your data runs out. It looks like this:
From here, you can input the phone numbers of the friends who you think have T-Mobile, and unlock your free hour of WiFi! I have yet to test how many attempts the services gives you before blocking you, so if you find out, let me know and I’ll update the post. If you’re successful, you’ll see one of these two screens:
If your friend has T-Mobile One+, you’ll get access to free data the entire flight. If they just have basic T-Mobile, you’ll only get an hour of free data but free texting all flight long. The best part, your friend doesn’t even get a notification letting them know that you used their phone number to access free WiFi. The one caveat is that if you both happen to be flying on the same day, you may block them out of their own WiFi access 😈.
There you have it. Enjoy doing some work on the plane or scrolling through Twitter. If there’s interest in a follow up post, I’ll share how to get this WiFi trick working on your computer through a couple of different options.
Have a favorite productivity/life hack? Shoot me an email to alex.jacob.cohen+productivity@gmail.com.