Up data for the next week or just let it go over?

Question

Everyone on my plan except my poor son has unlimited data - he became old enough to have a phone too late.  He is going out of town on a school trip on Thursday and is thisclose to bumping up against his data limit (which happens every month).  Normally I wouldn't do anything, but I do want him to be able to use his phone/data on the trip.  I can't find an easy way to up his data online.  Not being on hold for 30 minutes for customer service is worth something to me as well.  Should I up his data amount or just let him run over a GB?  Are we talking either $10 (to up his data plan) or $15 (to go over his data)?  I'll pay an extra $5 not to have to call them.  And then have to call them back when our new billing cycle starts in a week - LOL.

Answer 1

My son has had a phone for 2+ years now, so he is well versed in using wifi when it is available.  However, we live in a rural area and wifi options are not plentiful.  His biggest drain, I think, is that he won't use his high school's wifi because he says it's crap.  Not sure I believe that, but he understands the consequences (running out of data before the end of our billing cycle) and normally lives with them without complaining.  In this one case, I want him to have data even though he's used his allotment up for the month.  We are on a nationwide plan and our billing month ends on the 6th.
If what mrniceguy says is accurate, my choices are to call them and pay $20 and have to call them back to lower it again, or do nothing and pay $10.  In that case, I choose to do nothing and spend less money. :-)
I have usage controls set for him, so I went in and bumped up his limit usage to close to 3 GB and will go back in May 7 or soon after and put it back to where it is normally.
Our family must be data hogs.  I don't use a lot of data because we have home wifi and I also connect to my employer's wifi; my husband's job does not have wifi so he's a pretty big user; and my daughter, who is in college but lives off campus, routinely uses ~12 GB of data every month.
We will stay on this plan as long as possible, and know that if we want new phones, we will have to pay full price.  We also have all the phones fully insured so that if something happens to one of our phones, we don't have to drop $500+ until we are ready to. I am going to look into moving my son to Straight Talk so that he can have unlimited data too, and if he doesn't see any negative changes, we will all switch.  No reason to pay so much more every month for the same product.
Thanks for the replies!