All this upgrade eligibility stuff is so confusing...it's a truely overwhelming/nail biting experience for us early adopters. I figured I'd shed some light/my plan for the 15th-24th of June.
The plan that I am currently on is a family plan with four phones. 3 iPhones and 1 Blackberry Bold. I am somehow the primary on the account, even though I didn't open the account nor is it in my name. I am eligible for the upgrade because my bill is $246.00 a month and the others only cost $30. Basically, the breakdown shows me paying for shared minutes and unlimited texts and theirs paying data plans. Funny enough, the person with the Blackberry (whom moronically swapped from an iPhone 3GS in March of this year, signed a new 2-year contract, and now wants the iPhone 4) is eligible for the $399/$499 price point. This is odd because he JUST signed a new contact, he should be getting it for full price I would think. One of the lines we have isn't in use and the contract is up in July, we plan on shutting it down. Our third line isn't eligible for any upgrades, they bought their 3GS in September last year with a new 2-year contract. Next week, I plan on opening a new line on my companies AT&T iPhone account and getting a new phone number obviously with the subsidized price point. In which case someone on my account is able to take MY upgrade. Now, last year when the 3GS came out, we were in the same position, so here is what I did. When pre-orders began, I immediately ordered a 16GB 3GS from Apple online for $199. BUT! it did not arrive on launch day when it should have...so of course I freaked and thought, "well if my phone hasn't arrived, it obviously has not been activated under my line, if the Apple store has phones (which they did) I'll go try my chances at picking one up and just see what happens." Sure enough, they checked my eligibility in store, I was good to go. Walked out of there with a 32GB 3GS for $299. So when my 16GB eventually arrived, I gave it to my brother, he turned it on, and it deactivated my line right away....we just swapped the SIM's and everything was fine. I am going to try this again this year...whether it'll work, I don't know, I'm prepared for the worst. I think it's crazy WHY they wouldn't just sell iPhone's to anyone who currently has one for $199/$299...because for every 10 people that are willing to pay full price for their iPhones, there are 100 people excited and willing to pay $199 for the phone. I know they have to make their money somehow, but we all know that AT&T and Apple are still making a killing at the $199/$299 range. Sorry for this being so confusing, but I wanted to share my ideas because just like everyone else, I am constantly thinking about June 24th and how it'll go down!
