The Secret iPhone Discount - What AT&T Doesn’t Want You To Know

I have to tell you, I am totally tired of hearing about the iPhone. iPhone this and iPhone that. Not to mention all the whining about what this gadget can and can’t do (I confess, I was one of the whiners).

I went to the AT&T (formally known as Cingular) store the other day to see about working a deal on the iPhone rates. I didn’t get very far, but I did learn something that not too many people, if any, know about.

No matter what the AT&T sales people tell you, there IS a way to get a discount.

The Secret AT&T Doesn’t Want You To Know

AT&T is sticking by the “no discounts on anything related to the Apple iPhone” thing, and that includes the calling plan but — and here’s the secret — ONLY if your primary phone on your account is the iPhone.

Let me repeat that. Only if your primary phone on your account is the iPhone.

I got the sales guy to agree that if I opened an account and bought the Family Share plan with my wife as the primary subscriber and her non-iPhone as the primary phone, she would get any discounts she was entitled to, which would come off of the first $60 or so of the $69.99 Family Share calling plan (the last $9.99 being the cost of adding the second line to the plan).

Then, if I added a second line — and that line just happened to be an iPhone — I wouldn’t get a discount on the additional $9.99 (no big deal), and would have to pay the $20/mo data surcharge for the iPhone (also OK), but at least the big part of the bill, the first $60, would get the discount.

So if you’ve been thinking about buying an iPhone but putting off because of the high cost of the calling plan, this is a great way to get a great discount. Simply sign up your wife/girlfriend/significant other as your primary line, and make your line with the iPhone the secondary one.

The only draw back is that if you’re not already eligible for a discount, you can’t get one. I, on the other hand, get a sweet 15% discount from the AT&T business plan my wife has through her work.

But wait, there is one more, albeit sneaky, work-around.

The sales guys don’t care whether or not you really work at the place that gets the discount. All they need is for “you” to be able to answer their verification e-mail from an email address officially associated with whatever company “you say you work for”.

Now that’s a sweet deal.

Apple iPhone Deals

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