You may not want to upgrade/renew contract if you have the 10GB shared plan

I am on a family plan with my wife's family, and learlier this year, we took advantage of the $25 credit/line for 10GB shared plan. It was a big saving that we were all happy about. Then my contract expired earlier this month, I thought there is no downside on upgrading to a new phone since I am planning to continue to use AT&T, so I sign up for another 2yr contract and got a new HTC one M8 from amazon for $150. I was really happy, for $150 the phone is great.

Until few days ago I got the bill, and it shows upgrade fee of $35, I guess it's kinda expected, they would charge you for anything, no surprise here. Then I see that they have removed the $25 credit off my line.... Then I realized that this saving only applies to existing contract, and now I sign a new contract, it doesn't apply anymore, so this means, I am going to pay $25/month for the next 2years = $600, plus the phone I paid $150, plus upgrade fee of $35. I am basically out of $785 for this upgrade, not $150.

HTC.com sells unlocked/developer M8 for $699... So basically I paid almost $100 more for a phone that's locked (locked for 2years until contract ends), and I also cannot get out of contract for 2yr...... I can't shake the feeling that I got sour end of the deal here. It's has already been 3weeks when I got the bill, so I have missed the 14days remorse period. I am not happy at all.

I guess it's part of my fault that I didn't realized the limitation of this $25 credit until it's too late. But I wish I had been warned before hand. I just want to warn people who has this $25credit on 10GB shared plan, do your math before upgrade.