“T-Mobile’s offering a big BOGO deal on the new smaller Apple iPhone SE starting Thursday,” Doreen Christensen reports for The Sun Sentinel.
“The compay is offering half off a second piece of the hot new hardware, available in stores on Thursday, when you buy another and add a line,” Christensen reports. “The value is paid with a prepaid Visa card.”
Christensen reports, “The BOGO deal also is good on iPhone 6S, 6S Plus, 6 and 6S, 5S and 5C.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hey now! Ain’t competition grand?!
T-Mobile’s is a limited-time offer. Starting 3/31, get half off any iPhone when you buy a second iPhone and add a line. Via Prepaid MasterCard Card. The offer is limited to stock on hand and the new line must remain active until 7/15/16. Equipment Installment Plan required on both devices. Plus tax and fees.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
These deals are very unusual; I don’t think any carrier ever offered discounts this deep.
And before others jump in to remind us about all those BOGO (buy one, get one free) offers, those don’t count, since they were disingenuous. There was a time when people thought the iPhone cost $200, and that many other phones cost $0 (!!??). That was the time of Carrier “Subsidy” (nobody was subsidising anything; you were paying for it through the monthly plan). At those times, offering an iPhone at “half price” (i.e. for $100 upfront) actually meant discounting it by about 18% — no more.
People are now increasingly learning the actual, true value of their phones. And I don’t think I ever saw any carrier offering discounts in excess of $300 per device (and could go up to $475 for 6s plus at 128GB!!).
After languishing without direction (not to mention failed acquisition by AT&T), T-Mobile is clearly showing some aggressive ambition. The network build-out over the past two years was quite impressive, and the service offerings are by far the most attractive. If you have T-Mobile signal where you live and work, that’s the best offering.
For me, several features and services push it high above all others. One is unlimited music streaming that doesn’t count against your 4G allotment (this includes all popular music streaming services, including Apple Music). The other, really huge, is free unlimited 2G data and texting while overseas (!!). If you travel outside the US, this is probably the most significant benefit.
Not to mention that T-Mobile will unlock your phone (upon request) after just three months of service, no questions asked, even if you have 20 more months to pay it off.
I don’t work for T-Mobile. I have been with all major American carriers, at one point or another. I’ve been with T-Mobile before (when they were VoiceStream), and abandoned them for Sprint, then Cingular (-> AT&T Wireless), Verizon, Virgin Mobile… For most people coverage is (obviously) the first condition. If you have it, look at T-Mobile, you’ll save a lot of cash.
What do you think the coverage is like for T-Mobile? I’m thinking of either getting the 6S now or wait for the 7 in October. I like the Apple program since the phone is unlocked from the get go and I can choose any carrier. But a BOGO offer is enticing.
For me, Apple’s programme is a bit too expensive (although you do get the extended Apple Care, which some people like to have).
I live and work in Manhattan, and for me, coverage is a non-issue. I have traveled a bit around the US, but I really can’t tell how it compares. On New Jersey Turnpike, for example (which stretches from NY City down to Delaware — some 120 miles), I have coverage throughout, but this should be expected. I have traveled to the Catskills mountains and there are pockets without signal, but in general, it is OK. You would really need to test it before buying, if you are away from a major large city.
T-Mobile’s unlocking is simple, straightforward and quick. You send a request online, they contact Apple (this must be done through iTunes), Apple sets up their back-end for your unlocking; you hook up your phone to iTunes, back it up, restart it, iTunes unlocks it and all is good. In the worst case, you may need to restore that backup from iTunes after unlocking.
This BOGO is really very appealing. I say, go for it. Even used 6s goes for more on eBay.
Ha Ha. iPhones that are BOGO like Androids. I don’t want to hear that excuse anymore.
Equpiment Installment Plan required means you cannot just go in and buy the phone and get the deal. You have to 1- borrow money to get the deal and 2- open a new line (additional) with T-Mobile.
No thanks, I buy my phones outright, do not need an extra line and cannot get useful service from T-Mobile.
If you live and mostly travel along Interstate corridors you will do OK with T-Mobile, but if you get away from the Interstates or travel to smaller population areas you will quickly find yourself roaming on the second tier of AT&Ts mobile network.
I already have an iPhone 6 with unlimited data on AT&T and a 6 GB data plan on Verizon for an iPad Air 2 and an AT&T 4G LTE Hotspot with 5 GB per month. It is all heavily discounted as my employer does business with both of them. Additionally, I have access as a Comcast Internet customer, to a large national network of WiFi hotspots all over America- same for my AT&T and Verizon accounts.
Between the 4G mobile coverage, my home wired Internet and 3 large national WiFi networks, there is no way anything T-Mobile has that would pry me away.
Great, now how do I get this deal without moving to T-Mobile?