AT&T’s BOGO iPhone 8 Offer Is a Great Deal (for Some)

As of Friday morning at 12:01 am PST, Apple’s new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus flagships are officially available for pre-order online via Apple.com, an assortment of third-party Apple-authorized retailers, or any of the company’s domestic wireless carrier partners such as AT&T or Verizon.

Of course, we’re certain there’s a lot of excitement and pent-up demand for Cupertino’s latest flagships — chiefly in light of their impressive features like wireless charging, A11 Bionic CPUs, and AR capabilities. As a result, we’re also sure that wireless carriers are gearing up for a steady flow of sales as we head into the busy holiday shopping season.

Accordingly, some carriers are already offering promotions to drum up interest in the iPhone 8 on their network. As always, however, we recommend reading the fine print before diving into anything.

AT&T’s iPhone 8 BOGO

Beginning Friday, September 15, AT&T will supposedly be offering one of such deals: a ‘buy-one-get-one free’ on some its best-selling smartphones, including the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. Unfortunately, the fine print reads that the deal is exclusive to those who not only agree to purchase the handsets on an AT&T Next monthly payment plan, but who furthermore are either already subscribed, or willing to subscribe, to an AT&T U-Verse or DirecTV home phone, internet, and cable TV package.

It’s not a bad deal, really — perhaps for those who already subscribe to one of these home packages, or who’ve perhaps been entertaining the idea. Alternatively, for those who only want one iPhone 8 or 8 Plus handset, the carrier is offering customers a 32 GB iPad for just $100 if you purchase the iPhone on an AT&T Next payment plan.

We should note that there appears to be even more strings attached to the AT&T deal than meets the eye, as two of our readers, Karen and Dennis Ryan, pointed out to us in an email:

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“I got up at midnight and tried for an hour to order the iphone 8 under the BOGO and couldn’t. It appears one of the phones has to be for a new line you are adding to your account,” Ryan said, adding that “It had been represented to me by a sales associate at ATT yesterday that the BOGO would work to upgrade two of my existing lines. I feel as though this deal was totally misrepresented!  Very frustrating!”

Other Deals

At present, Sprint is also offering a deal on the iPhone 8 or 8 Plus, however it’s laden with caveats and sketchy terms. For instance, Sprint’s deal includes “50% off the price” of an 18-month iPhone 8 LEASE — not a purchase — which would bring the monthly cost to a little over $15 a month, Sprint says. Not bad, if you’re into leasing your smartphones. Interestingly, even if you wanted the deal from Sprint, you’d have to start by trading in a functional, high-end smartphone like an iPhone, Galaxy, or Pixel. We think we’ll sit tight for a while and see if any more of these deals pop up..
Are you pre-ordering the iPhone 8 or 8 Plus today?
Let us know in the comments below.