Best Buy Offering $50 Off of All iPhone 5 Models [Update: Now With $100 Gift Card for Rewards Zone Members]

Joelcarter86 · Dec 11, 2012

pommephone said:
I've read every post in this thread and the one at slickdeals, and I still can't figure out if I can get the $149.99 by going to the store, or only online. Can someone clear this up for me?

Rob

$50 off is in-store and on bestbuy.com. you can always order online and choose in-store pickup if you are unsure and want to reserve one for yourself. Deal seems to go til early Jan., but who knows if Apple will replenish stock before christmas.

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str8bucs said:
BB.com says I cannot upgrade until 7\31\2013..... I was just at AT&T the day before and they said I can upgrade.

Did they say it was iphone only upgrade for $200 on top of subsidised price? Idk if bby.com tells you if u have the iphone only early upgrade from att, but if att told you that you can upgrade, best buy mobile sure can do it too unless att misinformed you, which is always a possibility. Call 888bestbuy, I would imagine they can tell you whats going on.

fryrice · Dec 12, 2012

does this usually mean bb knows apple is gearing up to release a new version of iphone5 (maybe 5s??) they they need to get rid of stock?

i currently have a gs3 and looking to jump over to iphone5 same with my gf.

Errk! · Dec 12, 2012

fryrice said:
does this usually mean bb knows apple is gearing up to release a new version of iphone5 (maybe 5s??) they they need to get rid of stock?

i currently have a gs3 and looking to jump over to iphone5 same with my gf.

I'm pretty sure it a) Best Buy hoping to get a slice of that pie and b) getting you to buy it there so they can up sell you on accessories or their warranty service.

djransom · Dec 12, 2012

This is definitely a great deal. I will be picking up one for myself Friday afternoon.

cmcclure16 · Dec 12, 2012

Has anyone been able to confirm whether this deal is available in store or do you have to do it online and select in store pick up?

vicky07 · Dec 13, 2012

Nice deal but Do they sell it online?
My bad luck if they don't!!

djransom · Dec 13, 2012

cmcclure16 said:
Has anyone been able to confirm whether this deal is available in store or do you have to do it online and select in store pick up?

It's for both online and in store. I wonder if I can purchase via rewards for $200 use in store pickup and get BB to knock off $50. I also want to trade in my iPhone 4.

Joelcarter86 · Dec 13, 2012

djransom said:
It's for both online and in store. I wonder if I can purchase via rewards for $200 use in store pickup and get BB to knock off $50. I also want to trade in my iPhone 4.

You can purchase online for $150 and choose instore pickup. Bestbuy will hold an in-stock phone for you. Pick it up at Best Buy Mobile. If you trade in your phone after the fact the money goes ona gift card for your iphone 4, so I suggest calling the store and ask nicely to hold a phone for you, go in and trade ur phone at bby mobile then complete activation of new phone and pay instore using your giftcard. Im not sure if the rz points website deal and the $50 deal are stackable. Call your local store for an answer on that.

Joelcarter86 · Dec 13, 2012

Errk! said:
I'm pretty sure it a) Best Buy hoping to get a slice of that pie and?ting you to buy it there so they can up sell you on accessories or their warranty service.

Bby knows as much as you about new apple products. We get no insider information prior to product launches when they are made public. Im not sure the details of this deal, but I imagine it has to do with the 'We have all the apple products for your needs at best buy' ad campaign. Sure, there are tons of accessories for the phone and the protection plan is better than that of other protection or insurance plans, but that is all up to you. Employees aren't on commission so its not like they make more money if you buy extra stuff.

djransom · Dec 13, 2012

Joelcarter86 said:
You can purchase online for $150 and choose instore pickup. Bestbuy will hold an in-stock phone for you. Pick it up at Best Buy Mobile. If you trade in your phone after the fact the money goes ona gift card for your iphone 4, so I suggest calling the store and ask nicely to hold a phone for you, go in and trade ur phone at bby mobile then complete activation of new phone and pay instore using your giftcard. Im not sure if the rz points website deal and the $50 deal are stackable. Call your local store for an answer on that.

Thanks. I'm on hold with them right now. I placed an order at 10AM for in store pickup and it's now 4PM and my order still says processing.

drummingcraig · Dec 13, 2012

Maybe someone can answer this question for me.

I am planning on buying my wife an iPhone 5 for Christmas and would like to jump on the BB deal. I will be upgrading her line (the account is under my name) when I do it, and I want to make sure that they will not deactivate her current cell phone. So in other words, can I buy the phone for her, but leave it un activated until she opens it Xmas morning?

Fainer · Dec 13, 2012

I went to the Best Buy online site through Reward Zone and the prices were all back to normal, not marked as on sale. I thought this was going on until Jan. 5th (as another post stated). Did they terminate this early? I hope not!

brop52 · Dec 13, 2012

drummingcraig said:
Maybe someone can answer this question for me.

I am planning on buying my wife an iPhone 5 for Christmas and would like to jump on the BB deal. I will be upgrading her line (the account is under my name) when I do it, and I want to make sure that they will not deactivate her current cell phone. So in other words, can I buy the phone for her, but leave it un activated until she opens it Xmas morning?

Your wife should need to activate it when opening it. The old cell phone will be deactivated when the new one is activated.

mackandproud · Dec 14, 2012

Fainer said:
I went to the Best Buy online site through Reward Zone and the prices were all back to normal, not marked as on sale. I thought this was going on until Jan. 5th (as another post stated). Did they terminate this early? I hope not!

I had read on dealnews that this deal was valid until dec. 18th. I suppose bby decided to end the deal earlier than that. Never saw any written confirmation on bby's website concerning dates (didn't check).

Joelcarter86 · Dec 14, 2012

drummingcraig said:
Maybe someone can answer this question for me.

I am planning on buying my wife an iPhone 5 for Christmas and would like to jump on the BB deal. I will be upgrading her line (the account is under my name) when I do it, and I want to make sure that they will not deactivate her current cell phone. So in other words, can I buy the phone for her, but leave it un activated until she opens it Xmas morning?

In order to buy the phone at subsudized pricing, you must at least temporarily activate the iphone on the account using an upgrade. Her current phone will be deactivated when you do that if you use an upgrade from her line. Bby can put her old device back on but she will need a new sim if she currently has a 4G phone or will need to call *228 if 3G on verizons network. Which provider are you? Do you have any other eligible lines for upgrade other than hers?

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mackandproud said:
I had read on dealnews that this deal was valid until dec. 18th. I suppose bby decided to end the deal earlier than that. Never saw any written confirmation on bby's website concerning dates (didn't check).

The deal is til Jan. 5 in store and on bby.com. the rewardzone site runs its own special deals, which are typically not linked with best buy store deals. Call your local store to see if the deals are stackable, but if you want the $50 off, you must purchase in store or on bby.com.

drummingcraig · Dec 14, 2012

Joelcarter86 said:
In order to buy the phone at subsudized pricing, you must at least temporarily activate the iphone on the account using an upgrade. Her current phone will be deactivated when you do that if you use an upgrade from her line. Bby can put her old device back on but she will need a new sim if she currently has a 4G phone or will need to call *228 if 3G on verizons network. Which provider are you? Do you have any other eligible lines for upgrade other than hers?

Thanks for the reply.

We only have two lines and I already upgraded mine last month. We are on AT&T and she currently has a slider style non-smartphone that is only 3G. Just a bummer because I really wanted to have this for her on Xmas morning (as a surprise of course).

pommephone · Dec 14, 2012

drummingcraig said:
Maybe someone can answer this question for me.

I am planning on buying my wife an iPhone 5 for Christmas and would like to jump on the BB deal. I will be upgrading her line (the account is under my name) when I do it, and I want to make sure that they will not deactivate her current cell phone. So in other words, can I buy the phone for her, but leave it un activated until she opens it Xmas morning?

I've purchased iPhones for my wife on 2 separate Christmases, and have never been able to find a way around this. The best I could do was wait 'till Christmas Eve, but even then, her old phone stopped working and she figured it out.

jsalda · Dec 14, 2012

Has anyone been able to verify if/how the deals are stackable? Can you do it through the store with the rewardzone points? If not, how do you get them to price match through the rewardzone mobile site? I'm thinking about upgrading both of our 4 and this definitely is the best deal that there is gonna be. Already have a $50 gift card and if the reward zone points come through (on top of the $100 bucks off), basically, I can get an ipad mini for free.

scooterspud · Dec 14, 2012

Any further confirmations on taxes charged at bestbuy.com or in Best Buy stores for California? With the latest offer from Walmart, it would make more sense to get a PM from BB if they are only charging taxes on the discounted, subsidized price.

drummingcraig · Dec 17, 2012

Joelcarter86 said:
In order to buy the phone at subsudized pricing, you must at least temporarily activate the iphone on the account using an upgrade. Her current phone will be deactivated when you do that if you use an upgrade from her line. Bby can put her old device back on but she will need a new sim if she currently has a 4G phone or will need to call *228 if 3G on verizons network. Which provider are you? Do you have any other eligible lines for upgrade other than hers?

pommephone said:
I've purchased iPhones for my wife on 2 separate Christmases, and have never been able to find a way around this. The best I could do was wait 'till Christmas Eve, but even then, her old phone stopped working and she figured it out.

Update on this...

I called my local BB this morning and inquired about the activation, and if there would be anyway to get the subsidized phone and activate it later. Spoke with a knowledgable rep who informed me that if you buy online for in-store pick up there is no way to do it. However if you walk in and purchase it in-store they can setup the phone for a future activation when they're inputing the upgrade into the computer system.

I went there this evening and walked out with a 32GB black AT&T phone still wrapped and they never messed with my wife's current phone or SIM. We'll be able to activate it when she opens it on Christmas morning and she should be none to the wiser.

djransom · Dec 20, 2012

I picked up my 16GB AT&T i5 last Thursday evening. I originally ordered via RW Zone, but once I got to the store the rep told me about some mixup and she ended up refunding me for the RW Zone order and just charged me the $150 for the phone. Only thing that sucks is that I didn't get the 5000 points.

rbkruspe · Dec 21, 2012

What a nice deal. I am using Sprint and have a 4S since July so no upgrade though I have a second line I can activate. I really would love to do this but I have a feeling it will wind up costing more than just the 150. I don't really have money to spare for extra fees and charges. Does anyone know what I might expect? I don't care much about rewards, I just want the phone.

tomoye · Dec 22, 2012

any advice/help in my situation would be greatly appreciated!

my wife currently has a droid X with Verizon individual plan and I have a 4s with an AT&T individual plan. she is way past her upgrade eligibility date and I'm not up for an upgrade until June (hoping to get 5s next year since I have only owned the S versions of iPhones 3GS & 4S).

I want to get on this BB deal to get her a 32GB Iphone 5 but we want to convert her account to AT&T and then get a shared mobile plan.

questions are:
1) what are the steps we need to take to do all this trasferring of plans from one carrier to another and then to a shared plan?
2) (might open up a can of worms here) Is there any way I can keep my grandfathered unlimited data AT&T plan? I'm guessing not unless I stay individual. We are thinking of going with the 6GB option to share based on our needs and useage history which looks like will really only save us about $10/month but we would have unlimited talk/text.

Thanks in advance!

roalkl · Dec 22, 2012

Sprint

Tried this with the $100 Reward Zone points and with a Sprint Phone. Opted for pickup in store, which was only available at Best Buy Mobile Stores. Got in there, and they told me my order was ready however they couldn't find it.

They find the order, and they start to activate my phone. They then say they have troubles with online orders for Sprint and the only option I had would be to cancel my order and start a new order. I said that I would lose my offer, which then they told me that it would only be $20 off. In reality, it was that I would get 20 $5 rebates. Anyway, I didn't really feel like messing so I took the $50 off in store and was done with it.

drummingcraig · Dec 22, 2012

tomoye said:
any advice/help in my situation would be greatly appreciated!

my wife currently has a droid X with Verizon individual plan and I have a 4s with an AT&T individual plan. she is way past her upgrade eligibility date and I'm not up for an upgrade until June (hoping to get 5s next year since I have only owned the S versions of iPhones 3GS & 4S).

I want to get on this BB deal to get her a 32GB Iphone 5 but we want to convert her account to AT&T and then get a shared mobile plan.

questions are:
1) what are the steps we need to take to do all this trasferring of plans from one carrier to another and then to a shared plan?
2) (might open up a can of worms here) Is there any way I can keep my grandfathered unlimited data AT&T plan? I'm guessing not unless I stay individual. We are thinking of going with the 6GB option to share based on our needs and useage history which looks like will really only save us about $10/month but we would have unlimited talk/text.

Thanks in advance!

A lot of helpful information located here: https://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=54050&cv=820&ct=9004130&pv=3#fbid=6kkW28oB72E

If you want to keep your unlimited plan you will have to stay on an individual plan and add your wife as a second line on a Familytalk plan (she will have to have one of the tiered data plans for individuals).

No way to do this as a surprise mind you since you'd be porting her existing number over from another carrier (unless of course you just want to get her a new number all together).

Best Buy Offering $50 Off of All iPhone 5 Models [Update: Now With $100 Gift Card for Rewards Zone Members]

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