Sources are confirming to us that Sprint will finally be doing away with its mail-in rebates on the purchase of phones and other devices starting on March 27th. How long Sprint will be eliminating the mail-in rebates is unclear, but from the whispers we hear it might not be a permanent thing.

Instead of mail-in rebates, the company will be switching to “instant savings,” as most other carriers do in the U.S. The move will apparently apply to corporate owned retail stores as well as most other retailers that sell Sprint products.

Sprint is apparently hopeful that the move will bring the carrier at least temporarily in line with what other carriers are doing and make head to head comparisons a little easier, as the pricing will be much closer, if not the same. In the past, there was always the catch:  “Well, the Sprint price is the same or less, but you have send in this mail-in rebate for $100 to get it there.”

We will see if the move has an impact on the bottom line, as we suspect that this is the only way that Sprint will stay with this program.