Also, this Deal, i.e. the TIV Promo, is also good towards purchase of Galaxy S22 series phones, and S21FE as well!! You can get paid for trading in a used S21 for a new S21 FE How to get paid
The T&C, and the elevated values of phones eligible for trade for this deal:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/clp-...1537879921
To Summarize:
In Store order and trade in only. No online orders
Towards purchase of UNLOCKED ONLY version S22 series, S21FE, Flip4, Fold4
UNLOCKED means non carrier variant, though you can do activate now with a carrier on an Unlocked phone if it suits your needs
In store only. Offer valid 4/17/22 – 1/23/23
Previous pre-order experience: https://slickdeals.net/f/15969637-best-buy-save-up-to-900-on-unlocked-galaxy-z-series-with-qualifying-in-store-trade-in-99-99?p=156909793#
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In my case, I had to activate (activate today) the phone on my carrier (T-Mobile) as a device upgrade, otherwise the S21 FE would be priced at $699 instead of $499. Without activation I would have had to pay around $133.
The coupon ($400) expires on Oct 02, 2022. They didn't give the printed out coupon to me, but I took a picture of it.
What I found was Best Buy sold me the factory unlocked "U1" model with no carrier bloatware, and the activation was like as if BB gave me a Sprint sim and I BYOD the phone to Sprint immediately using that sim. Of course that didn't lock the phone to Sprint and I was able to use any other sim as well even though Sprint had the IMEI registered on one of its lines. If I then use a different phone with that sim maybe Sprint would have complained but some networks don't care. A few days later I cancelled Sprint service through their satisfaction guarantee and threw the sim away.
This is fundamentally different than if BB sold me the carrier-locked model ("U" instead of "U1" after the model number) which would have contained carrier bloat firmware and lock from factory. But I suspect if they advertise the phones as unlocked then they are selling "U1" instead of "U". The S22 Ultra I got today (with activate later) was the factory unlocked "U1".
As for whether there will be bill credits with this promo, my experience was the trade-in is done as a separate transaction to the purchase, and it just gives you a GC + coupon to be applied to the full purchase price of the phone, regardless of which phone you buy or if you were going to do activate now or later. So I think the phone should be regarded as paid off in full from time of purchase, and there shouldn't be bill credits even if you did activate now.
Tl;dr is if you confirm with the agent you are buying a "U1" model and it is paid off in full (I think almost all factory unlocked phones are anyway) then you should be able to do what you want to do.
There's no payment/bill credit to/from T-Mobile associated with my trade in. Hope this helps.
What I found was Best Buy sold me the factory unlocked "U1" model with no carrier bloatware, and the activation was like as if BB gave me a Sprint sim and I BYOD the phone to Sprint immediately using that sim. Of course that didn't lock the phone to Sprint and I was able to use any other sim as well even though Sprint had the IMEI registered on one of its lines. If I then use a different phone with that sim maybe Sprint would have complained but some networks don't care. A few days later I cancelled Sprint service through their satisfaction guarantee and threw the sim away.
This is fundamentally different than if BB sold me the carrier-locked model ("U" instead of "U1" after the model number) which would have contained carrier bloat firmware and lock from factory. But I suspect if they advertise the phones as unlocked then they are selling "U1" instead of "U". The S22 Ultra I got today (with activate later) was the factory unlocked "U1".
As for whether there will be bill credits with this promo, my experience was the trade-in is done as a separate transaction to the purchase, and it just gives you a GC + coupon to be applied to the full purchase price of the phone, regardless of which phone you buy or if you were going to do activate now or later. So I think the phone should be regarded as paid off in full from time of purchase, and there shouldn't be bill credits even if you did activate now.
Tl;dr is if you confirm with the agent you are buying a "U1" model and it is paid off in full (I think almost all factory unlocked phones are anyway) then you should be able to do what you want to do.
also what happens if I don't activate my sprint account at all? how will they charge me?
Someone previously on this thread mentioned they managed to activate on T-Mobile with a prepaid plan however, but my hunch is they got lucky and it should have been postpaid.
Trade-in phone was an "impaired" Note20 I found on eBay a few days ago for $130 excl. tax from one of the larger used phone dealers. Only things wrong with it were missing S-Pen and hardly noticeable screen burn. Locked to xfinity but clean ESN. In fact it was in such good condition I hesitated whether to just keep it as my upgrade and not do the deal. But who can say no to the "profit" if I can trade it in for $800.
Store experience was initially painful. Every agent knew about the promo but nobody knew how to do it except two guys who were of course busy with other customers. Maybe it was just the time of day I went in. Once I got one of them who knew what they were doing, he was very nice and process went smooth.
Some observations:
- I was able to watch the agent's screen throughout. The trade-in workflow looked very similar to the one on the Best Buy website except there's an extra blue banner at the bottom when checking out that reveals a promo code box. Putting in "SAMSUNG" activated the promo on top of the initial trade-in price (same as what gets quoted during online trade-in).
- Note20 trade-in price was $250. The promo adds $50 to that to give $300 issued as a GC and attaches a $500-off purchase coupon to the trade-in receipt. Missing S-Pen and network lock didn't affect the trade, but IMEI was of course entered so not sure if clean ESN mattered. Agent didn't hesitate to choose "unlocked" as the variant even though I told him it was locked to xfinity. Apparently it's just for choosing the "U" model which is the one used for xfinity, US cellular etc. as well as unlocked "U1" phones.
- Purchase coupon says expiry 10/02 but I wouldn't rely on this to mean the trade-in promo to get the coupon expires on that date. Nice agent let me take the coupon home afterwards and I attached it to this post for those who are curious what it looks like. I wish I remembered to ask him when the promo ends.
- Trade-in and purchase were done as two completely separate transactions. In fact the agent did them on different machines. He also emphasized I didn't have to use the GC towards a phone purchase today, but I wondered if that's true for the coupon as well. Maybe you can do the trade-in and just walk out and not buy a phone, and use the coupon later before 10/02. But if the trade-in was greater than the purchase price you should definitely be able to keep the difference in GC as previous posters have said.
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Any downsides to doing this?
Anyone with the s21fe care to comment on their experience with the phone?
What I found was Best Buy sold me the factory unlocked "U1" model with no carrier bloatware, and the activation was like as if BB gave me a Sprint sim and I BYOD the phone to Sprint immediately using that sim. Of course that didn't lock the phone to Sprint and I was able to use any other sim as well even though Sprint had the IMEI registered on one of its lines. If I then use a different phone with that sim maybe Sprint would have complained but some networks don't care. A few days later I cancelled Sprint service through their satisfaction guarantee and threw the sim away.
This is fundamentally different than if BB sold me the carrier-locked model ("U" instead of "U1" after the model number) which would have contained carrier bloat firmware and lock from factory. But I suspect if they advertise the phones as unlocked then they are selling "U1" instead of "U". The S22 Ultra I got today (with activate later) was the factory unlocked "U1".
As for whether there will be bill credits with this promo, my experience was the trade-in is done as a separate transaction to the purchase, and it just gives you a GC + coupon to be applied to the full purchase price of the phone, regardless of which phone you buy or if you were going to do activate now or later. So I think the phone should be regarded as paid off in full from time of purchase, and there shouldn't be bill credits even if you did activate now.
Tl;dr is if you confirm with the agent you are buying a "U1" model and it is paid off in full (I think almost all factory unlocked phones are anyway) then you should be able to do what you want to do.
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For personal plans, activate now means you're upgrading a device on the line but fully paying off the device.
For personal plans, activate now means you're upgrading a device on the line but fully paying off the device.
Some information: The promo code seems to give you a coupon for $400, which the rep scanned into the system. I was given $200 on a BB gift card which he applied to my order total of $105.99, leaving me with $94 on the card (side note, what can I buy from BB to maximise my savings? Everything seems incredibly overpriced there). Unfortunately no 256GB available, but he was willing to order it. I was just worried about the deal ending or something by the time it arrived, so I opted for the 128GB.
I'm pretty happy, as I had got the S20 FE from a T-Mobile trade in promo on release, where they gave me bill credits for the entire value. I had traded in my $120 Pixel 3. I used the S20 for 2 years almost exactly. Truly a slickdeal, getting paid to "upgrade" your phone
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