Verizon's "Get $300" Promotion

[mafia]

As from their website, "New Verizon customers as well as existing customers who want to add a new smartphone line can get $300 for their old phone."

For a second, I thought this ment that if you trade-in any smartphone, you will get $300 gift card if its in working order. But as we all know, its a bunch of marketing bait.

I have 5 lines on my VZW, I want to upgrade one of the lines which isn't a smartphone.. to a smartphone, meeting the "add a new smartphone line" requirement. While chatting with a Verizon Associate, they said that in order for this to work you can only trade-in the existing phone that's on the line. But how can you trade-in a smartphone from an existing line that isn't a smartphone? That's what I asked them and they cancelled my chat session.

It seems to me that they are just glorifying what they have been always doing, trade-ins.

This kind of marketing bait really pisses me off. Shame on Verizon.

 

[lopri]

Can you pop out the SIM from the dumb phone and stick it in a $10 smartphone? Just an idea, lol. I have no clue.

 

[cronos]

You can't do that because it's technically not a new line. You could argue that the wording says 'new smartphone line', but the reality is they want you to start a fresh line. An 'upgrade' is most definitely not a new line, so there's no way you could get approved for it this way.

They won't care what phone the SIM is in (if the dumb phone even has a SIM card), what they want is a new, additional, line. If you now have five, you need to add a sixth line. If you are a new customer, you only need one line. You can, of course, cancel the line with the dumb phone, and then create a new line separately. That would qualify you for this deal. But of course this line will be treated as a new line, and not an 'upgrade'.

 

[destrekor]

The website makes it messed up how they word it, but they also word it correctly in other parts of the promo's description.

Add a new smartphone with monthly device payments, trade in your old smartphone, get the $300 credit or gift card.

You can totally upgrade your current smartphone to a new smartphone with monthly payments. I tried the online tool like I was buying a new phone, and for trade-in I popped in my current phone, and it said it was worth $300.
I tried the trade-in tool on its own and got a ridiculously low trade-in value.


So, upgrades work.

I'd suggest actually going in store and trying to use an old device to start a new smartphone line with the credit.

I'm actually hoping I can do just that myself, because I want to help my parents out and get my dad on a smartphone under the deal, and use one of my old phones (which was previously under their family share plan, I just recently got out of that plan) to get them the promo credit. I'm also hoping it either just works outright or I can sweet-talk my way into trading in said phone (with a small chip/pit/crack in the glass at the top) to get the credit even if nobody buys the Droid Turbo 2. We'll see.

 

[destrekor]

You can't do that because it's technically not a new line. You could argue that the wording says 'new smartphone line', but the reality is they want you to start a fresh line. An 'upgrade' is most definitely not a new line, so there's no way you could get approved for it this way.

They won't care what phone the SIM is in (if the dumb phone even has a SIM card), what they want is a new, additional, line. If you now have five, you need to add a sixth line. If you are a new customer, you only need one line. You can, of course, cancel the line with the dumb phone, and then create a new line separately. That would qualify you for this deal. But of course this line will be treated as a new line, and not an 'upgrade'.

Verizon dumb-phones don't have SIM cards. Only the LTE phones have SIM. All other phones run on CDMA only, which doesn't utilize SIM card for identification.

 

[cronos]

Verizon dumb-phones don't have SIM cards. Only the LTE phones have SIM. All other phones run on CDMA only, which doesn't utilize SIM card for identification.

I mentioned SIM card only because lopri mentioned it.

 

[destrekor]

I mentioned SIM card only because lopri mentioned it.

Yeah I figured that, but just felt I should point that out. I happened to quote you.

 

[Raduque]

I wonder if my old Huawei S7 "tablet-with-a-sim-slot" would count as a smartphone...

 

[isekii]

as long as you're doing the trade in process as you're making the add a line or upgrade~ it should show $300 bucks for the smartphone (Android/ios/windows).
It doesn't even have to be the phone that's currently on your account. There's a huge slickdeals thread about this. just buy any cheapo android phone for like $5-10 bucks and trade that in for $300 towards any smartphone. The best deal at the moment is the LG G4 since that also has a $200 rebate from the manufacturer and a $100 coupon. You actually end up making money on it.

 

[Raduque]

as long as you're doing the trade in process as you're making the add a line or upgrade~ it should show $300 bucks for the smartphone (Android/ios/windows).
It doesn't even have to be the phone that's currently on your account. There's a huge slickdeals thread about this. just buy any cheapo android phone for like $5-10 bucks and trade that in for $300 towards any smartphone. The best deal at the moment is the LG G4 since that also has a $200 rebate from the manufacturer and a $100 coupon. You actually end up making money on it.

Can you provide a link to the G4 rebate info? I just bought one and I'd like to see if I qualify.

Edit: Ah, found it. Submitted, we'll see if I get anything before the holidays!

 

[isekii]

Can you provide a link to the G4 rebate info? I just bought one and I'd like to see if I qualify.

here you go

http://www.lgg4octoberrebate.com/

If you purchased in October

 

[mafia]

as long as you're doing the trade in process as you're making the add a line or upgrade~ it should show $300 bucks for the smartphone (Android/ios/windows).
It doesn't even have to be the phone that's currently on your account. There's a huge slickdeals thread about this. just buy any cheapo android phone for like $5-10 bucks and trade that in for $300 towards any smartphone. The best deal at the moment is the LG G4 since that also has a $200 rebate from the manufacturer and a $100 coupon. You actually end up making money on it.

Well that's not what the Verizon associate told me. If that's the case then this isn't such a bad deal.

 

[crankytinkle]

this looks interesting.. off to Verizon.. I hope this is a good deal. thanks bod