* Activating the Fi S24 phone
When you get the phone:
1. The SIM is already installed in the phone, although the phone box is sealed.
2. Turn on the phone, connect it to WiFi and log into the same Google account that was used to purchase the phone.
3. Download and install the Fi app from Google Play Store.
4. Leave WiFi ON. Run the Fi app. It will insist that you turn Data ON. Go ahead and turn Data ON. It might use a few MB of Data before switching to WiFi. If FI charges you for that Data at all, it will be 1-3 cents added to the 2nd bill.
5. Go through the activation process with the app which will transfer your Fi service from yourl old phone to the S24.
6. Your S24 phone should be activated on Fi then. Make some test calls/texts to make sure that the phone is working on Fi.
* Tracking Your Promo Discount
Log into your Fi account on the web site. There's a countdown in your Billing-->Fi Savings-->In Progress that shows how many more days your Fi service has to remain active. About 24 hrs after you activated the Fi SIM, the In Progress Tracker should show a checklist with entries like: Bought a phone, Got a discount, Activated the SIM, Stay xxx more days on Fi. Make sure the "Activate the SIM" entry is checkmarked and it shows 120 days to go. Then for a few days after that, keep checking the In Progress to make sure the countdown is decreasing each day. The countdown is updated at the same time each day (around the time of day that you activated the Fi SIM).
* How to Verify that your S24 promo was Earned
There's a countdown in your Billing-->Fi Savings-->In Progress that shows how many more days your Fi service has to remain active. The countdown will never say zero day. On the 120th day, it will stay at "1 more day". On the morning of the 121st day, the countdown should say "Stayed (past tense) active on Fi for 120 days in a row". Then later in the day, the In Progress column disappears, and the promo discount gets moved to the Earned column. At that time or later, it's safe to Cancel or Pause your Fi service.
You can use this Date Calculator: https://www.timeanddate
Enter your activation date as the Start Date, select Add 121 days and it'll show the date when it's safe to cancel/pause your Fi service.
* How to Cancel your Fi service
In your Fi account, click on Account-->Your Plan, scroll down until you see "Leave Google Fi". Click on that and follow the on-screen instructions. You'll have the options to Let Go your Fi phone number, or Transfer To Another Provider. (There used to be an option to port it back to Google Voice, but I think it's no longer available). If you choose to let go your Fi number, your Fi service will be cancelled IMMEDIATELY. If you choose to port out, your Fi service will remain active until your Fi number has been ported out to another provider.
* How to Pause your Fi service
In your Fi account, click on Account-->Your Plan, scroll down until you see "Pause Service". Click on that and follow the on-screen instructions. Your Fi service will be paused and Automatically Resumed after 90 days, unless you cancel it before 90 days are up. Once it's Resumed, you can leave it Active, or Cancel it, or Pause again (I don't know how many times you can Pause). If you have a lot of remaining referral Fi credit (which is not refundable), you can choose Pause instead of Cancel to wait and see if there will be new Fi promotions in the future to use up your Fi credit.
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Steps I took as a former Fi subscriber to get this deal: https://slickdeals.net/forums/showpost.php?p=
Strong recommendation: For people who activate service on a BYOD device to become an existing customer, wait a minimum of 24 hours (recommended 48 hours) before purchasing the S24. Those who activate and purchase the same day usually have major issues. The countdown timer will not be triggered and you will have no choice but to forfeit the discount or return the phone. You can try to contact support and ask to escalate to a specialist which may or may not have success and will likely eat up your return window.
For those that purchased same day, it seems that given early data points including mine that
Fi has manually approved the promo after escalating. Unknown if this will consistently be successful by others in future, though.
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Thought it's a 24 Month Bill credit?
"Get reimbursed over 24 months
Receive $27.09 off each bill for 24 months
The credit is tied to the person who activated the device"
Sorry for the ignorance but I'm new to Google Fi deals!
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With a S23U trade in, i calculated that Fi will be ~$250 cheaper after everything. That's with me having to buy a case/screen protector from the Fi deal, then selling the S23U. On the Samsung deal, I kept the free case/protector and selling the Buds 2 Pro Bora. With Fi, you take on the risk of selling your old phone. Whether that risk is worth $200-$300 is up to the individual.
• Signed up as new user
• Ported my primary number over as I want to use the fi service
• 3 days later my bill was in finalizing state, still was seeing the 24 months rebate instead of instant
• I got tired of waiting so ended up ordering the phone with the 24 month rebate
• Order got canceled because my payment dint go through. But I couldn't re-order as the offer wasn't available on my account anymore
• Decided to wait for a day and the next day I saw the instant rebate 😊offer in my account
Thanks all for the discussion and guidance here.
2. After activation and making a few test calls/texts, you don't need access to the S24. With the Fi S23 phone that I bought last year, I made a few test calls/texts then put it back into the box. The promo discount was still earned 120 days later.
I give you credit for answering these types of questions. The poster reminds me of someone with a dancing bear avatar , lol
Certainly Leeloo does not want any gender neutral colors
• Signed up as new user
• Ported my primary number over as I want to use the fi service
• 3 days later my bill was in finalizing state, still was seeing the 24 months rebate instead of instant
• I got tired of waiting so ended up ordering the phone with the 24 month rebate
• Order got canceled because my payment dint go through. But I couldn't re-order as the offer wasn't available on my account anymore
• Decided to wait for a day and the next day I saw the instant rebate offer in my account
Thanks all for the discussion and guidance here.
Lucky your payment failed. Patience is a virtue sometimes.
With a S23U trade in, i calculated that Fi will be ~$250 cheaper after everything. That's with me having to buy a case/screen protector from the Fi deal, then selling the S23U. On the Samsung deal, I kept the free case/protector and selling the Buds 2 Pro Bora. With Fi, you take on the risk of selling your old phone. Whether that risk is worth $200-$300 is up to the individual.
Sell on FB Marketplace of CL for cash. Not on Swappa. On Swappa buyers have too much recourse where they can screw you. Actually on eBay too. Good thing about eBay though is you can check out a buyers feedback score. But they take a big cut.
The only thing is when selling something in person for several hundred bucks, it could pose its own risks.
• Signed up as new user
• Ported my primary number over as I want to use the fi service
• 3 days later my bill was in finalizing state, still was seeing the 24 months rebate instead of instant
• I got tired of waiting so ended up ordering the phone with the 24 month rebate
• Order got canceled because my payment dint go through. But I couldn't re-order as the offer wasn't available on my account anymore
• Decided to wait for a day and the next day I saw the instant rebate 😊offer in my account
Thanks all for the discussion and guidance here.
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Put my service on Pause to contemplate whether this deal is worth pulling the trigger.
* Although this deal is "good through 1/31", it's subject to change without advance notice. If I'm not mistaken, with the S23 pre-release deal last year the trade-in values were decreased significantly after 10 days, and eventually the free memory upgrade was pulled.
* Although this deal is "good through 1/31", it's subject to change without advance notice. If I'm not mistaken, with the S23 pre-release deal last year the trade-in values were decreased significantly after 10 days, and eventually the free memory upgrade was pulled.
The only thing is when selling something in person for several hundred bucks, it could pose its own risks.
Chances are a bad actor will not show up there.
Never meet at your home/job/car drive-up/street, or other unsafe locations.
Swappa and eBay are risky too, and their fee is 12% plus the shipping fees.
You use the SIM Manager option in Settings-->Connections to manage the pSIM and the eSIM, designating which one is the Primary to use for making outgoing calls/texts, which one to use for Data, etc. You can change those designations anytime and as often as you wish. If you want to "remove" an eSIM permanently, you can delete it using the SIM Manager. If you want to temporary disable the eSIM without deleting it, you can do that with the SIM Manager. If you need to reset the phone and it has an eSIM "installed", you have the option to wipe out the eSIM or leave it alone.
Once you have the S24 and start playing with the SIM Manager, it'll make a lot more sense to you. eSIM is not something scary and mysterious.
When you activate the S24 and have its pSIM in place, service from your Pixel will transfer to the pSIM. If the pSIM is not in place when you activate the S24, then service will transfer to the S24's eSIM.
I'd like to use my visible plus esim account for data, voice and text. Maybe I should just sock drawer the Google Fi psim like I did for the s23 ultra deal last year.
is there any value to keeping the Google Fi as a backup sim if visible service is poor in a given area etc ?
Chances are a bad actor will not show up there.
Never meet at your home/job/car drive-up/street, or other unsafe locations.
Swappa and eBay are risky too, and their fee is 12% plus the shipping fees.
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