Well that was fun.
Just called ATT Customer Care, to see if anything came of their supposed "meeting" today. The CC agent and the Retention agent (to whom I asked to be transferred) knew nothing about it. Policies have not changed, upgrade date cannot be altered.
The retention guy tried to go through a spiel about how transferring to VZW would cost me more, a bald-faced lie. My $250 upgrade fee from ATT is cheaper than my $225 ETF -- plus there'd be a $36 upgrade charge from ATT, as well.
He then tried to tell me I'd lose my unlimited data plan. This is true, and a minor concern. Still, over the past six months I've only averaged 1.2GB of data usage per month. I spend a lot of time on wifi. Maybe I'll end up using more with the 5, and I'll end up needing the 4GB plan. Could be.
Next, he went into a spiel about how the iPhone 5 isn't that much of an upgrade, and do I really want to spend that $$$? I know ATT makes their money off service, not equipment. But I doubt Apple would appreciate the ATT reps dissuading people from upgrading!!!
Finally, he made a half-assed attempt to keep me, by offering to give me six months of texting free ($60 total). But, he then admitted that my texting plan would then go up from $10 to $20 after the six months was up!!!! So I'd save $60 in six months, then break even after twelve months, and at 13+ months ATT would be getting MORE of my money!!!!!!
So, the bottom line is that it looks like I'm jumping ship to Big Red tomorrow. The $225 ETF is painful, but I figure that my iPhone 4S resale value is probably $75-100 higher NOW than it will be 8 months from now, partially offsetting the difference. Maybe I'm just rationalizing, but oh well.
And of course, a year from now, I'll probably be moaning and groaning that VZW won't give me an upgrade, but that's next year's problem.