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Transfer Upgrade Eligibility?

forza69

forza69

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 30, 2010
790
131
So I have an AT&T iPhone 5s that I bought last year. No upgrade available on my line. My brother who is the main account holder, and sister-in-law both have upgrades available on their lines (we're on a family plan). They both just upgraded their phones to Samsung Galaxy S5's not too long ago using upgrades from my mom and dad who are also on the plan. Is there a way for me to use my brothers upgrade during pre-order? I want to buy the iPhone 6 Plus.
 
forza69 said:
So I have an AT&T iPhone 5s that I bought last year. No upgrade available on my line. My brother who is the main account holder, and sister-in-law both have upgrades available on their lines (we're on a family plan). They both just upgraded their phones to Samsung Galaxy S5's not too long ago using upgrades from my mom and dad who are also on the plan. Is there a way for me to use my brothers upgrade during pre-order? I want to buy the iPhone 6 Plus.
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I've done this in the past. The easiest way to do it is to simply have your brother or sister-in-law buy the phone. When the phone arrives, don't turn it on and make sure your brother or sister-in-law is around with their phone. You will need to call up AT&T and have them enable the phone for your account. With some carriers, you just need to swap SIMs. With AT&T you need to (or at least you used to need to) make sure that the IMEI number is registered with the SIM. Without doing this, the phone will work, but data will not.

Interestingly, I noticed on Verizon that there is now an option to transfer the upgrade to a different line.
 
AT&T supports this directly on their site now (they call them "Shared upgrades"). I assume if you pre-order through AT&T it will be easy. Otherwise you can probably do it the old fashioned way, order it for your brother's line, then call AT&T before you activate to have them move it over to the proper line, which is how I did it for my 5S.

You can also swap SIMs on AT&T after activating just fine (that's how I always did it in the past), the problem was that the previous phone had a different type of SIM, so I had to call this time.

Do this with your brother's blessings only, of course! :)
 
djrobx said:
AT&T supports this directly on their site now (they call them "Shared upgrades"). I assume if you pre-order through AT&T it will be easy. Otherwise you can probably do it the old fashioned way, order it for your brother's line, then call AT&T before you activate to have them move it over to the proper line, which is how I did it for my 5S.

You can also swap SIMs on AT&T after activating just fine (that's how I always did it in the past), the problem was that the previous phone had a different type of SIM, so I had to call this time.

Do this with your brother's blessings only, of course! :)
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Thank you! I wasn't aware you could do this online now.
I just did it :D
64GB iPhone 6 Plus here I come.
 
forza69 said:
Thank you! I wasn't aware you could do this online now.
I just did it :D
64GB iPhone 6 Plus here I come.
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After you switched, were you able to see it online? My line is eligible for upgrade in December. I went into take my dads discounted price since his line isn't eligible and when I switched with him it does show that he can now upgrade in December. The reason I switched is because he let me use his upgrade last time and now I want him to be able to use my December upgrade if he wishes. I'll just settle for discount.
 
forza69 said:
Thank you! I wasn't aware you could do this online now.
I just did it :D
64GB iPhone 6 Plus here I come.
Click to expand...

You just did what exactly? From what I see, if you go this route, you have to complete the phone order on the ATT site which you can't do yet.
 
Avenger said:
You just did what exactly? From what I see, if you go this route, you have to complete the phone order on the ATT site which you can't do yet.
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Same thing it looks like to me... If there is a way to go ahead and swap eligibility prior to the preorder I would be curious to know what it is.
 
Avenger said:
You just did what exactly? From what I see, if you go this route, you have to complete the phone order on the ATT site which you can't do yet.
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This is correct! Just got off the phone with AT&T. Exactly what they told me!
 
mguti said:
This is correct! Just got off the phone with AT&T. Exactly what they told me!
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Hmmm I would rather not buy from ATT. I like to buy directly from Apple. Is there any reason why they wouldn't still do the upgrade swap afterwards like they used to? I know it's a bit of a bother because you have to call and give the info and everything.
 
Wait, so Apple has an option for shared upgrades with Verizon in their online store but doesn't with AT&T? I'm in the same boat, will swap my upgrade and I prefer to go through Apple but I'll preorder through AT&T if I must.
 
Avenger said:
Hmmm I would rather not buy from ATT. I like to buy directly from Apple. Is there any reason why they wouldn't still do the upgrade swap afterwards like they used to? I know it's a bit of a bother because you have to call and give the info and everything.
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i asked if i go ahead and preorder with my dad's number and then once the phone gets here call and have them swap things around. He didn't say no it can't be done. He said they much rather do it online WHILE you are placing the order for the new phone.
 
mguti said:
i asked if i go ahead and preorder with my dad's number and then once the phone gets here call and have them swap things around. He didn't say no it can't be done. He said they much rather do it online WHILE you are placing the order for the new phone.
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I just went a called up and it seems like it can still be done after the fact. I would buy from ATT but who knows if they will ship on time, etc... As for the other person's question, I didn't see the function on the Apple site for transfering the ATT upgrade eligibility. Looks like it is an ATT site feature.
 
Avenger said:
I just went a called up and it seems like it can still be done after the fact. I would buy from ATT but who knows if they will ship on time, etc... As for the other person's question, I didn't see the function on the Apple site for transfering the ATT upgrade eligibility. Looks like it is an ATT site feature.
Click to expand...

Right it is a ATT website feature once you log into your account. Now it looks like ATT is offering up to $300 for 5s trade in's. Nothing posted on their website yet
 
Avenger said:
You just did what exactly? From what I see, if you go this route, you have to complete the phone order on the ATT site which you can't do yet.
Click to expand...

Well I had logged into my att account and supposedly switched my brothers upgrade to my line. A little while later I logged back in to see if it worked and it hadn't. So I started a chat with a cs rep. He told me that it wasn't working and had to either call or visit a store for the upgrade transfer to take place. :/
 
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