Getting full discount on phones out of time frame

precisionk

So I have tmobile and have been a customer for them for at least 4 years. My contract doesn't go up until next January but I am interested in one of those Google phones. Problem is they wont give me the full discount until I am some 30 days from my contract expiring.


What are some ways I convince them to give me the full discount? Threaten to quit?

matt has a problem

There's no way to "threaten to quit" your contract. You'll still be stuck with a couple hundred in early termination fees, and depending on the contract may have to return the phone you have or be stuck with fees paying for it, too.

Ages

The Early Termination Fee is something they charge to keep you from turning off service. Sure, it sucks to pay 200 or something dollars to drop service, but it sucks for them even moreso. If you cancel now, you'll be out the ETF, but they'll be out the money you would be paying for the next four months, as well as any potential money they could make from you for renewing your contract.

Talk to their cancelations department. If they're anything like the cell phone company I used to work for, they'll sell you the world just to keep you from leaving them, including discounts on new phones.

precisionk

Ages wrote: »

The Early Termination Fee is something they charge to keep you from turning off service. Sure, it sucks to pay 200 or something dollars to drop service, but it sucks for them even moreso. If you cancel now, you'll be out the ETF, but they'll be out the money you would be paying for the next four months, as well as any potential money they could make from you for renewing your contract.

Talk to their cancelations department. If they're anything like the cell phone company I used to work for, they'll sell you the world just to keep you from leaving them, including discounts on new phones.

Think getting the full discount would be asking for too much on a new phone, if I chat with them?

Ages

It really depends on the rep you speak to, but I can't imagine them wanting to lose a customer versus a few hundred dollars on a phone. After all, once they give you that x dollar discount, you basically owe them y dollars per month for the next one or two years. Y is, pretty much, always greater than x.

You may have to haggle with them though; they're given a certain amount of things they can offer you, such as discounts on handsets and rateplans, in addition to free accessories, before they decide that your monthly contribution just isn't worth dealing with you.

jthm

I did something similar to this a few weeks ago, here is how I went about it:

go to howardforums.com, find the subsection for your provider

look up the direct phone number for their LnR (loyalty and retention department).

Before you call, browse around and find out what kind of deals other people have managed to get, write something plausable but sweet down for you

I called into their LnR department and told them I was offered x features for y dollars, and the deal was so good that I would be willing to pay the 200$~ cancellation fee to swap providers.

Within 15 seconds my provider had "matched" the offer (which I completely fabricated), and I was off to a physical store location to resign my contract and pick up my new blackberry.

From what I have seen, scoring a huge discount on a phone early is reserved for customers of 6-8 years+, but if they don't budge on a specific phone, make up for it with your rate plan. In my case I got 50$ knocked off the price of a blackberry storm (i payed 150 CAD for the 3 yr resign price), and pay 57$ a month for service that would have cost roughly 115 had i not haggled. I now pay less money for a shit-ton more features (including unlimited data which I never had before).

Good luck.