How does the Cingular phone upgrade work?

Hello group..
Will be elegible for a phone upgrade in December on my Cingular account and
was wondering if they really do give you a good deal? My guess is, by doing
the phone upgrade you have to extend your contract? That's no problem as so
far Cingular has been the best for me..I sorta "broke" the screen cover on
my Sony T637..Still works but the clear cover is cracked and I mussed up a
few pixels :-)
Was thinking of trading up to a Razr..Was using a friends Razr and seemed
the earpiece volume was a bit low, is this a problem on them? Sure was a
cool phone tho..

Anyway just wanted to find out if they really do give good deals on phone
upgrades...

Thanks folks!
John

Sometimes they do, seems to depend on the phase of the moon,
the time of day and whether the CSR got laid the night before.
It's like buying a car, you never seem to get the best deal with
their first offer. Sometimes you have to escalate to a manager
or threaten to leave and get transferred to their customer retention
group (who has far more leeway on pricing and being able to
credit your account than the first CSR you'll talk to).

Here's the very short version of my recent situation:
My first call to Cingular they wanted $400 for a RAZR because
I still had 9 months left on my contract. I explained it would be
cheaper to leave them, pay to break the contract and then
go to T-Mobile who at the time had the RAZR free after rebate.

Eventually I spoke with someone in the customer retention group
who offered the RAZR for $200 plus a $200 credit to my account.
Instead I took the V551 for free (and it had a $25 rebate so they
me to take it), plus a $200 credit to my account.

The V551 broke (and sucked when it wasn't broken) so I called
and got a different person who offered me the RAZR for $200
plus a $50 credit to my account. So after the $25 rebate (which I
chose to take as a credit to my account) and the $50 credit to
my account on this call, and shelling out $200, I netted a RAZR
for $125 while still under contract with 9 months to go. I had to
sign up for another 2 years, but oh well.

(There was actually far more to the story than this, and I also got
a Nokia 6230 in the process here for $40 which I sold on ebay
for $175 then bought a 6620 on ebay for $185). Basically
this is just to demonstrate there's no easy answer to how
upgrades work if you're willing to spend a lot of time on the
phone with them and refuse their first offer.




"John" <jonjon.winn@TAKETHISOUTmail.utexas.edu> wrote in message
news:den56u$fo6$1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu...
> Hello group..
> Will be elegible for a phone upgrade in December on my Cingular account
> and was wondering if they really do give you a good deal? My guess is, by
> doing the phone upgrade you have to extend your contract? That's no
> problem as so far Cingular has been the best for me..I sorta "broke" the
> screen cover on my Sony T637..Still works but the clear cover is cracked
> and I mussed up a few pixels :-)
> Was thinking of trading up to a Razr..Was using a friends Razr and seemed
> the earpiece volume was a bit low, is this a problem on them? Sure was a
> cool phone tho..
>
> Anyway just wanted to find out if they really do give good deals on phone
> upgrades...
>
> Thanks folks!
> John
>

John wrote:
> Hello group..
> Will be elegible for a phone upgrade in December on my Cingular account and
> was wondering if they really do give you a good deal? My guess is, by doing
> the phone upgrade you have to extend your contract? That's no problem as so
> far Cingular has been the best for me..I sorta "broke" the screen cover on
> my Sony T637..Still works but the clear cover is cracked and I mussed up a
> few pixels :-)

You do have to extend yout contract. As for deals, I think you pretty
much get the same deals that a new customer would get.

> Was thinking of trading up to a Razr..Was using a friends Razr and seemed
> the earpiece volume was a bit low, is this a problem on them? Sure was a
> cool phone tho..

With my RAZR, I had a similar problem. I ended up using a bluetooth
earpiece to compensate for the low volume.




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