Best Buy's Black Friday deal

[awsomsauce]

Question for those with more experience! BF and I are hoping to take advantage of Best Buy's "$150 off when you activate an unlocked pixel 3a" deal. Problem is, I have T-Mobile, which Best Buy doesn't deal with. He has Verizon. How difficult would it be if we bought the 1st one, activated it on his line, then bought the 2nd one and did the same, then I take the first to activate on my line. I know in theory it should be very easy since they're unlocked, but it's our first time buying unlocked and first time buying from Best Buy. So I wanna be sure I'm not missing any details lol

 

[Rukbat]

Question for those with more experience! BF and I are hoping to take advantage of Best Buy's "$150 off when you activate an unlocked pixel 3a" deal. Problem is, I have T-Mobile, which Best Buy doesn't deal with. He has Verizon. How difficult would it be if we bought the 1st one, activated it on his line, then bought the 2nd one and did the same, then I take the first to activate on my line. I know in theory it should be very easy since they're unlocked, but it's our first time buying unlocked and first time buying from Best Buy. So I wanna be sure I'm not missing any details lol

A problem if it's a Verizon phone: Verizon locks the bootloader. that's worth a lot more than $150 to me. I wouldn't take it if it was 100% off.

If it's an unlocked phone, you're buying the phone, you're not buying it with service. You just buy the phone (Pixels are unlocked) and activate it on your carriers. Just put your current SIM card into your phone, he puts his current SIM card into his phone, you call TMobile and tell them that you've switched to a Pixel 3a, he calls Verizon and tells them that he switched to a Pixel 3a.

Do not activate your phone on his line, activate it on your line (by calling TMobile after you've put your current SIM card into the Pixel). If Best Buy is only selling it with a, say, 24 month Verizon contract, you'll have to pay an Early Termination Fee (probably on the order of $350) to stop having to pay Verizon every month.

(Make sure you tell the sales person [if s/he can't, ask hm/her to get someone who can] that you would like them to unlock the bootloader before you buy it. [If they tell you that the bootloader can't be unlocked, it's a Verizon phone, not an unlocked phone. The only ones I see for $349 say "with activation today", which means you have to activate it on Verizon, and keep it activated for the period of the contract or pay the ETF. They're $399 if you don't activate them. [Best Buy is probably getting at least $100 from Verizon for activation. And you can activate it on AT&T or Sprint (for only $299 if it's a new account) too.]) So if you want to get it without activation, pay the $50. It's still $100 off.

Oh, and the sale is already going on, you don't have to wait until Black Friday (when the store will be packed like a sardine can). I already put together a complete desktop (out of individual parts - case, motherboard, etc.) at Black Friday prices - that's what I'm typing this on.

 

[awsomsauce]

They're unlocked devices. On black Friday, the phone is an additional $100 off (so $299 for base 3a instead of current $399 price) if you just buy the phone, they don't care about service. But if you activate it on vz, sprint, or at&t at time of purchase, you get an extra $50 off. So we'd have to activate both phones on his line or we won't get the extra $50. But as far as I can tell, it's not attached to a service or anything like that. The $50 off with activation is happening now, but the extra $100 off is only on black Friday