It was looking like T-Mobile was going to unveil their “anytime upgrade” club today and they have done just that. The catch here, this is actually called T-Mobile JUMP and the details are a bit different as compared to what we had been seeing in the rumors. That said, the details of the JUMP upgrade club have come by way of the T-Mobile event from where the carrier had promised to announce their “boldest moves yet.”
Whether or not the JUMP upgrade club can be consider the boldest move yet remains to be seen, however it does have T-Mobile taking a rather different approach from the other carriers. In fact, both Verizon Wireless and AT&T have recently pushed upgrade eligibility out to a full 24-months. Other carriers aside, lets get into the details of the T-Mobile JUMP upgrade club beginning with how it is being touted as offering “customers with total protection for one of their prized possessions: their smartphones.”
The JUMP upgrade club is priced at $10 per month and will mean the ability to upgrade to a new device when they want — as opposed to when they are told they are eligible. Well, maybe not whenever you want, but certainly more than with competing carriers. T-Mobile will have the JUMP program available beginning on July 14th and customers will be able to upgrade two times per year.
T-Mobile breaks this down as follows;
“Customers can upgrade to a new phone, financed through T-Mobile’s Equipment Installment Program (EIP), twice every 12 months after they’ve been in the JUMP! program for six months.”
This also means you will be trading in an existing phone that is in good working order. Customers upgrading on this plan will have any remaining EIP payments (on the current device) eliminated and the purchase price for the new phone will be what a regular new customer would be paying. The other perk involved here is the bit about the device protection — which includes against malfunction, damage, loss or theft.
Most carriers charge $8 a month just for insurance and device protection. With T-Mobile $10 a month gets you the same protection and insurance plan, AND lets you upgrade your phone twice a year. Excellent move T-Mobile!
Seems weird, assuming you take out the insurance aspect, I am paying $2 a month to allow me to EIP a new phone, basically paying a fee to use TMO in place of credit.
Yea, but sure beats once every 2 years like other carriers.
Lets say you dont sign up for this program and you still had a year left you would owe $240. What if you just sell your phone for lets say $300 and use $240 of it to pay off your EIP which in turn will close out your EIP plan. Then you make an extra $60 that you can add to a down payment for a new phone starting a new EIP plan. Or another scenario would be if you still had 1 yr 6 months left ($360) and sell the phone for $400 pay off the rest of your EIP. I don’t see how the JUMP program is beneficial or am I seeing this all wrong?
i like it but doesnt it say you have to trade in a working device? SO how does this work like insurance if you lose your phone