Checking out some incentives for Apple’s new iPhone 13
My wife and I wanted our new iPhone 13s as soon as possible, so we ordered them from Apple on Sept. 17 at 7 a.m. Central (when order-taking began). Though it killed me, we paid full retail (though I used my Apple Card and got 3 percent cash back).
I heard all mobile carriers had significant incentives for iPhone 13 models, so I visited the T-Mobile website to explore their deals.
Things looked promising at first: For the 1TB iPhone 13 Pro Max, the carrier offered “up to $1,000 off with trade on Magenta MAX,” while for the 512 GB iPhone 13, the offer was, “On us with Magenta MAX with trade.” So I was curious about Magenta MAX and how it differed from our current Magenta plan.
As far as I could tell, the Magenta MAX plan was the same as our current Magenta plan, but with unlimited premium data and 40 GB of mobile hot spot data instead of the 100 GB of premium and 5 GB of hot spot data in our current plan. It cost $5 a month more than our current plan, but I often exceed our current data allocations. So I wouldn’t mind having unlimited premium and more hot spot data for $5 a month per line.
So far, so good. Before placing our order with Apple, we considered trading in one or both of our iPhones but decided they were worth more as spares or hand-me-downs than the $310 Apple offered.
I couldn’t find trade-in prices on the website but thought they’d appear during checkout. I couldn’t find anything about adding AppleCare+ either, but because you can add it for
up to a year after purchase, I was ready to buy two phones as soon as I figured out how much of that “up to $1,000 off ” my iPhone X was worth and how “on us with Magenta MAX with trade” would
work for Lisa’s iPhone 8.
When I tried to order them, however, I got an error message: “Sorry, we’re unable to process this request online as additional changes may be required for your account.
Not to worry, one of our Experts will be happy to help. To complete this request, please contact Customer Care by calling 1-800-937-8997, or by dialing 611 from your T-Mobile phone.”
Instead of calling, I visited my local T-Mobile store to clarify my understanding of Magenta MAX pricing, determine trade-in prices for our current iPhones and order a couple of iPhone 13s if the price was right.
It took nearly two hours to clarify, but the price wasn’t much better than Apple’s, and these phones wouldn’t ship until Oct. 6 to 13 (compared with Sept. 24 through Apple).
Bottom line: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Caveat emptor.