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FCKGW posted:To expand on this, they have the phone $100 off and they're doing a bonus $100 on trade in phones. I have a question about how activation works when you purchase through Best Buy like this. I'm currently with AT&T (postpaid plan, but no contract and my current iPhone 8+ is unlocked). I really want to move to a prepaid plan eventually to save some money since I don't use that much data or care about 5G in my town. A few months back I tried to switch from AT&T postpaid to AT&T prepaid and the jerks would not let me port my phone number to a prepaid plan directly. They were gonna make me add it as a separate line with a new number, then after some wait period, I would be able to swap the number over and cancel the old postpaid line. I didn't bother because I didn't want to juggle two numbers. I wouldn't mind switching to T-mobile, but I don't want to get stuck on one of their postpaid plans indefinitely. I checked out the Best Buy online preorder form and it looks like if I pay for the phone up front instead of using a payment plan, I get get the $100 discount for a new T-mobile activation, $160 for my iPhone 8+ trade, and an extra $100 trade in bonus. A $360 discount with trade-in seems good enough to me, but my concern is that I have to pick a T-Mobile postpaid plan (Essential, Magenta, or Magenta Max) as part of the preorder. There's nothing in the fine print I can find about how long I have to stick with that plan. Will the phone be unlocked after activation with T-Mobile? Can I immediately switch over to a prepaid plan like like T-Mobile Connect? Could I even immediately switch back to AT&T on one of their prepaid plans? The only thing I can find anywhere is this link explaining T-Mobile's unlock policy, which says that they will unlock a phone after 40 days of postpaid service: https://www.t-mobile.com/responsibility/consumer-info/policies/sim-unlock-policy I'm ok with paying for a month or two of T-Mobile postpaid service. I just don't want to get trapped with postpaid plan rates for a long time or end up with a phone I can never unlock. If anyone here knows how they're gonna screw me over if I try this, or can answer my question about lock-in, I'd appreciate advice. I tried doing a Best Buy live chat, but they said I needed to ask the carrier since the phone would be locked to them upon activation. I called the T-Mobile help and couldn't really get an answer out of them. They said as long as the phone is unlocked I can switch to prepaid right away, but couldn't tell me how to get a new phone unlocked since I don't have an account yet.
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Sep 23, 2021 00:03
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 04:39 |
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Bad Purchase posted:I have a question about how activation works when you purchase through Best Buy like this. I think I was able to answer my own question with some further digging. The answer is that I will be locked to T-Mobile for 40 days if I do the Best Buy deal. After that I can go anywhere. The cheapest T-Mobile plan I can pick is $65/mo for those 2 months, vs about $25/mo for prepaid with the data I need. So the extra cost would amount to $110 ($40x2 + $30 for another activation somewhere else after 2 months). The total Best Buy incentive is $385 ($100 discount, $260 trade in, and about $25 of sales tax saved), and the net value is $275 ($385 - $110). The other option is I could just buy the drat phone directly from Apple unlocked from day 1 and go wherever I want. Looking at the used market, I could probably get about $230 after shipping and fees if I sold my 8 plus on Swappa. Or I could trade in to Apple for $180. So in the end, the numbers come out to:
It's probably not worth the hassle (and risk of something going wrong). I think I might as well just buy from Apple and go directly to a cheap prepaid plan in one swoop. On the other hand, that $95 would just barely cover the cost of purchasing an apple case for my new phone 
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Sep 23, 2021 04:28
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Marching on Fort Sumter to move my wife to my wireless plan.
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Sep 30, 2021 20:33
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Maneki Neko posted:Single line is tough, that doesn't seem to be tmobiles strong suit for good deals. they have plenty of good prepaid plans that will more than pay the cost of a new phone in savings over a 2 or 3 year period compared to a $70+/mo magenta plan. i get 6GB of data which is plenty as long as you’re not constantly streaming video on LTE/5G for $25/mo through t-mobile connect, and it doesn’t get deprioritized or suffer the jank of some of the other big MVNOs. compared to the magenta plan i was on for a few months to get a subsidy for my 13pro through a bestbuy promo last year, i’m saving almost $600/year for essentially the same service. the only bummer is that the prepaid plans don’t let you add on a watch.
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Sep 8, 2022 22:40
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C2C - 2.0 posted:I did the $45/mo to fend off some of the de-prio and I’ll be about 40 minutes outside a major city in a few days. Future roomie has Verizon & says she gets good coverage in the area. definitely curious to hear how this goes for you, i just switched from t-mobile prepaid to the $45 visible plan because they're one of the few prepaid plans that supports a smartwatch. so far haven't noticed any data issues in the burbs, but haven't been to any dense urban areas yet.
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Oct 26, 2022 02:30
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 04:39 |
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thanks for the info. i also ended up making a trip to Orlando, FL over the weekend and had no signal or data issue at all even in a pretty packed mall and the hellscape that is ikea. pleased with the visible service so far.
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Nov 1, 2022 18:34
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