I was told I need to be 21 months into my AT&T contract to get subsidized price but..

[emceechad]

Do I need to be day AND date into it? By the time July 11th rolls around, I will be 10 days from making 21 months. Will AT&T still give me the iPhone at the subsidized price, or will I have to pay an ETF?

[xintelinsanex]

AT&T will probably not allow it, but you can certainly negotiate with the sales people. I thought it was 18 months in not 21 months. I remember the sales people telling me a year and half into my contract. Hmmm.... I guess they changed it.

[volsfan0911]

I emailed AT&T asking them a similar question. Summary - I am 8 months into a 2 year contract on a non-iPhone (Blackberry). Told them I wanted to get new iPhone at release (July) and asked if I was going to be an eligible upgrade customer or not. Answer - yes, I will. I'll have to sign a new 2 year contract which will supercede (replace) my existing contract. So, I'll only pay the $199/$299 subsidized pricing on the 3G. Which I can live with.

[patput]

10 days wait and you are thinking of paying a fee?

Originally Posted by emceechad

Do I need to be day AND date into it? By the time July 11th rolls around, I will be 10 days from making 21 months. Will AT&T still give me the iPhone at the subsidized price, or will I have to pay an ETF?

[ILBandit]

Originally Posted by volsfan0911

I emailed AT&T asking them a similar question. Summary - I am 8 months into a 2 year contract on a non-iPhone (Blackberry). Told them I wanted to get new iPhone at release (July) and asked if I was going to be an eligible upgrade customer or not. Answer - yes, I will. I'll have to sign a new 2 year contract which will supercede (replace) my existing contract. So, I'll only pay the $199/$299 subsidized pricing on the 3G. Which I can live with.

They just told me the opposite a couple days ago, they said they couldn't budge on the dates, and that I would have pay the extra $$ for the iphone, if I did it before my actual date.


I was only asking for about 1 month early, but they wouldn't do it.
Maybe I should call back, and try again??

[volsfan0911]

I'm thinking of going to the AT&T store here today and asking an employee in person there. Tried calling several weeks ago and couldn't get a live human being on the phone so I sent my question via email and got the above answer back. Which is good in a way since I have it in writing from one of their CSR's that I am eligible for the upgrade even though the website doesn't show that. As others have posted on here, AT&T wants to keep that churn number low (churn=turnover to other carriers). They'll probably be a little more flexible on their conditions if that is what it takes to get you into a new 24 month contract on the 3G iPhone with a $30/month data plan + voice + some sort of messaging they hope + whatever else they can find to sell you. Trust me, they look at Verizon buying Alltel and their new #2 customer number status and probably don't like it one little bit. They've bet really big on the iPhone, signed their corporate lives away to get it exclusively and need to sell every single one they can get from Apple UNDER AT&T CONTRACT to get their money back over the next 3-5 years.