Introduction
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you heard about the new iPhone 7 announcement yesterday. You can read more about it from Apple. I was on the fence about getting one, but seeing as how my mom needs a new iPhone, I figure I’ll get the new 7 for myself and give her my 6S Plus. I don’t plan on buying any extras to resell this year like I did with the 6S last year.
Tmobile offer
A few hours later, T-Mobile came up with an offer of “trade in your iPhone 6, 6+, 6S, 6S+ variants for a free iPhone 7.” I read through that entire thread and after I stopped facepalming myself at people, let me summarize it for you. Also, Tmonews came out with a helpful article too. Lastly, you can pre-register for the Tmobile iPhone 7 here.
To summarize:
- Valid for NEW and EXISTING CUSTOMERS
- I don’t think you need to sign up for the new T-Mobile One rate plans
- Trade in a FULLY PAID OFF, NO CRACKED SCREEN, NO WATER DAMAGE, working iPhone 6 or greater, you’ll get the iPhone 7 32GB for FREE (meaning you’ll sign up for a 24 month installment plan and you’ll get monthly credits.)
- If you cancel service before the 24 months, you no longer get the credits and will have to pay off the remaining balance on the phone, so you’re sorta stuck with the phone for 24 months.
- If you want the 7+ 32GB, it’ll cost you an extra $120.
- If you want the 7 128GB, you’ll pay an extra $100. Pay $200 for the 256GB.
- If you want the 7+ 128GB, you’ll pay an extra $220 and if you want 256GB, it’ll be $320.
- Lots of people asked if they trade in a 6S 64GB if they will get the 7 128GB for FREE, and the answer is NO. Thus, trading in a 16GB and a 128GB gets you the same benefit at the end of the day.
- If you trade in any 5 series (5, 5C, 5S,) you’ll have to pay $250 for the iPhone 7 32GB. You’ll pay $370 if you want the 7+ 32GB. Then an additional $100 for each memory variant step.
Lots of people asked about the JUMPONDEMAND, and there was no direct answer, but it seems that if you got in on last year’s offer, if you officially “jump” to the 7, you’ll lose the bill credit. And you won’t get this offer either. You could potentially pay off the entire 6S JUMPONDEMAND balance and then take advantage of the offer, but you will be losing about 6 months worth of that monthly discount. You could of course hold on to the 6S until it’s fully paid off, but this offer will be gone by then, and at that point, may as well wait for the next generation. If I was in this situation, I would probably wait until the next generation. Now of course if you have an old 5 or 6 laying around, it would behoove you to turn that phone in to get this offer for the 7. You could then sell the 6S JUMPONDEMAND phone and eventually pay it all off.
What? You thought this would be simple?
Similar situation here.
I’m on JumpOnDemand with Samsung Note5 device since a year ago. I traded in Galaxy s5 that time and got the new device for $5/month. Amazing right? Not completely.
Issues:
1) I’m billed $25/month for the device. AND pay taxes on it. Then out of nowhere $20 monthly credit appears in account, several days later after bill. (So the real price is $5 + tax from full $25). I suspect iPhone people will get this trick with credit as well.
2) Now new Note 7 just released recently. And I can’t jump because I’ll lose $20 credit I’m receiving.
Well played, T-mo.
I think it’s clear there’s always a ‘gotcha’ in these promos. They don’t want to give you a deal and then you change phones every 6 months or so. They expect you to ride out the phone [and your service] for the full 24 months.
The real pain comes when you realize that you went through all that (and lived) just to save $120 (sometimes much less).
I’m in the JumponDemand boat. It kinda sucks that the JoD ppl, which are the ppl that T-Mobile targeted heavily last year, are the ones most screwed by this promotion. I think there are only two options. First, suck it up and pay off the rest of the balance and the purchase option fee and then trade up to the 7. Second, buy a iphone 6, 16 gb from Ebay for 300 and trade it in, and once you finish paying off the phone you have, buy it and sell on Ebay. Or, of course, just do nothing as the 7 will seem really really sucky when Apple’s 10 year anniversary generation phones hit the market next year.
I think you’ve outlined all the options with last year’s JoD ppl.
Can I just say how amazingly complicated T-Mobile made this whole thing in order to save a maximum of a few hundred bucks? The same can be said about the entire points/miles industry. Why is it so hard to save money? LoL.
Because handing you cash over the counter is a bit too easy? 😉
Can you recommend doing this? I am a T-mobile customer (post-paid plan) and have iPhone 6 (GSM/CDMA) 64 GB. I purchased this iPhone on eBay last year for Discover promo as “new” (paid $600), this is a factory unlocked phone. Currently I’m trying to sell this phone, because I don’t “like” Apple products too much. Do you think it is a stupid idea to trade it (if they trade such phones, but my phone is in excellent condition, used only for 10 months) and try to sell the new one? How much is ‘installment’ plan?
Well you can either sell the phone now on eBay or you can trade it in for a 7 and sell it on eBay. Up to you.
but how can you sell 7 if you have to pay 24 months for it (I assume you receive credits, right)? can you claim this phone to be unlocked, paid off, etc?
This is unclear at the moment. When the deal was first announced it appeared that, after you get the 7, you can pay it off and still receive the monthly credit for 2 years as long as you have T-Mobile. However, now people on slickdeals are reporting that the monthly credit is most likely going to count against your EIP…and if you paid off your 7 in full then you no longer have an EIP. I am personally unsure, but that appears to be the current sentiment.
People on Ebay are vague and buyers won’t know if you’ve paid it off outright or if it’s on an installment plan. As long as you are not trying to scam them and you are paying for your Tmo service for the next 24 months (to get your credits,) then both you and the buyer will be fine.
but still, buyers can ask. I’m sure if they knew that the phone is not paid off (even if you are going to stay with TMO), they wouldn’t take a risk.
Where do you see the 5 series offer?
It’s in his Twitter stream. People asked and tmobile answered