Secondary line upgrade

[cave62]

If someone wants to upgrade a secondary line on a family plan after the 24/months agreement has been fulfilled why is there a charge for the phone? Primary is free why is this? Anyway around it?

 

[MikeAce00]

Each line will have their own upgrades. Your secondary line will get the same benefits for upgrades as your first.

 

[Dakota - Tom]

Do you mean upgrade the phone? For that, you'll pay the price based on the phone model and the length of contract you want. Why would you expect any different?

 

[cave62]

I have 3 lines on the family plan. My wife's phone is due for an upgrade, so I went to newegg to check out the droid inc. price. The price is free with a new/2yr agreement for the primary line but 79.99 for her line.

 

[trav473]

I have 3 lines on the family plan. My wife's phone is due for an upgrade, so I went to newegg to check out the droid inc. price. The price is free with a new/2yr agreement for the primary line but 79.99 for her line.

You are not starting a "NEW" contract. This would be for someone coming from say sprint or at&t and starting new service with verizon. Have you checked with www.vzw.com and seen what kind of deals you can get from them? If you can't find a matching deal on VZW website compaired to the dael on new egg, call them up and see what you can get out of them, tell them you found "this deal" at new egg and see if they can match it or beat it. I have found that you can some times get a better deal that way. worth a shot. If you are totally out of contract on ALL lines you have a little leverage, they want you back in a contract.

 

[kyler13]

It's funny you mentioned that. I've been noticing the same thing. My guess is that Verizon puts less value on the slim margin of the monthly rate for added lines on a family plan and most retailers pass the cost on to you. I was looking at stuff on Wirefly, Amazon, etc and noticed that additional family line upgrades generally had the worst pricing, and it wasn't a huge break over the full 2 year pricing through Verizon. In some cases, Verizon was cheaper with specials/sales. I did some searching around and found this practice not to be the case at Best Buy. They seem to treat 2 year upgrades the same regardless of line. So my wife wanted the Samsung Continuum which was on special, and I was able to get it FREE with a 2 year upgrade. I was psyched because whether through Verizon or anyone else, I couldn't do better than $79.99. I highly recommend keeping an eye on Best Buy's sales.

 

[cave62]

Thanks I'll keep checking with bestbuy.

 

[AFAngryWarrior]

The reason is they don't make as much commission on secondary lines. Since the secondary line only bills $9.99/month or $120/yr Verizon isn't going to subsidize their commission as much for a line that bills say $69.99 / month. Each reseller can set the price of the phone to whatever they want. Verizon sells them equipment for $x and they can resell it for whatever they want either at a loss to get you to buy and they recoup on commission or at a gain.

 

[kyler13]

The reason is they don't make as much commission on secondary lines. Since the secondary line only bills $9.99/month or $120/yr Verizon isn't going to subsidize their commission as much for a line that bills say $69.99 / month. Each reseller can set the price of the phone to whatever they want. Verizon sells them equipment for $x and they can resell it for whatever they want either at a loss to get you to buy and they recoup on commission or at a gain.

The irony is that Verizon makes the most off third party retailer sales on renewals of primary lines of family plans because the majority of the service cost falls on the primary line. Couple that with the fact that the upgrade pricing is not as agressive as a new contract and you get max margin for an upgrade. The long and short of it is that primary upgrades > new contracts >> add-a-lines for Verizon. Of course, a big box national chain like Best Buy seemingly just averages out the margin differences and doesn't differentiate on upgrade pricing among line types.