Ordering AT&T phone from APPLE.COM. How I did it...

I've been posting on the "Apple Store is Down" thread and I want to clear up a few things that people seem to be questioning.

First things first, ordering on AT&T website seems like it is the easier choice to go by, as long as you have all of your shipping addresses in order. I have been getting notices from people on the forums and other friends ordering the phone that AT&T won't let you change the shipping address. This poses a problem to the people who have a different billing and shipping address (running off of a family plan, old home address, business accounts--although I'm not sure about this one). If you want the phone shipped to a different address, you can't use AT&T. I can't guarantee that it'll be possible on apple.com because I didn't have to go through it; but it's definitely a no-no on the AT&T website.

Okay! So! Some background. I ordered my iPhone 4 RIGHT when it was released to the public. Hence, I'm not eligible for a discounted upgrade option yet. With that in mind, I ordered ONE AT&T 64GB WHITE IPHONE with EARLY UPGRADE PRICING. Here is how my night has looked.

1. Started the refresh war at 11:58PM on 10/6. Store.Apple.Com was already down from several hours before, but as 12:01 drew nearer, Apple servers started slowing down. I kept on going and go a lot of fails.

2. At around 12:20, I found out that Verizon and Sprint websites were working, but Apple and AT&T website were still not working. Kept refreshing.

3. At around 12:40, Apple Store came back up (with messed up CSS codes from the refresh). Began a very long and painful process of entering in information to check eligibility and stuff.

4. At 12:53, I finished the eligibility check and the phone was reserved. I received a confirmation letter from Apple <order_acknowledgment@orders.apple.com>. It read the following:

Dear MAYER,
Your iPhone has been reserved and your reservation number is: xxxxxxxxxx61

We will email you at this address (xxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com) when it’s time to complete your order. At that time, you will return to the Apple Store to confirm pricing and plan selection.

You may check the status of your reservation at any time by visiting buyiphone.apple.com/status

Thank you,
The Apple Store Team

5. At 1:10AM, I received my second email asking me to finish the ordering process. It read like this:

Dear MAYER,
Your iPhone order is ready to complete. Please click here to return to Apple.com to complete your order.

In order to maintain the priority of your order, you will need to complete your order by Saturday, October 8, 5:00PM PDT.

In order to complete your order you will need to:

Confirm your iPhone pricing
Select a messaging plan
Select a data plan
Choose where to get your new iPhone and check out
Your reservation number is xxxxxxxxxx61. If you have any issues completing your order, please call 1-800-MY-APPLE.

Thank you,
The Apple Store Team

6. Immediately following, I tried to access the links provided in the second email and complete the purchase, but it did not work. This is believed to have been because of the AT&T Premier downtime.

7. At around 2:00AM, AT&T Premier website came back online and I got through the order build page. The loading struggled again near the end. I had to switch my browser from Safari to Google Chrome and it worked a whole lot better. About 10 minutes later, I finally got through.

8. I submitted the order and a third email from Apple came in, confirming the order placement. My credit cards were charged to reflect the invoice/receipt.


Honestly, I don't know if this is going to help anyone, but it seems like a lot of people are confused. But at least people now know that the store work and that you CAN get the phone. Goodnight everyone! It's 3AM now...

 

That's what I've been told by many people. I would have gone through the AT&T website, but I had not enough money in my card. I was contemplating what to do and then the 2nd email came in form apple. Then I found out that they allow you to use two cards for purchase (oh the things that I do for Apple). I set it up and BAM all's through. Yay!