F&F discount on Smart Plan

[rosijaypierce]

Hi, 

I originally signed up for an iPhone Smart Plan so that I could trade in and upgrade after 12 months. Since taking out the plan, I had F&F discount applied. 

When I went in to upgrade, we were almost finished when I was told they couldn't upgrade the phone early because of the F&F discount and even taking the discount off wouldn't work and that it would have been in the T&Cs of the discount. I've since read through the T&Cs and there is no mention of not being able to use the Smart Phone Upgrade whilst using the discount. 

Does anyone know any more info about this? I wouldn't have taken out the Smart Plan had I known this as it was the whole reason I chose that one in the first place. 

Thanks

[rosijaypierce]

Hi David,

thanks for your reply. The discount can be carried over but the issue I’m having is that I paid extra for the smart plan because you can upgrade for free after 12 months. But in store they said because I have the discount, it means I can’t take advantage of the annual upgrade despite there being nothing of this in the terms and conditions of the discount. 

Thanks

[Leanne_T]

Hi there @rosijaypierce 

Thanks for coming to the community. 

If you upgrade online, does the discount carry over? 

This would show in the basket for you. 

Thanks. 

Leanne. 

[rosijaypierce]

Hi Leanne,

Thanks for replying. The issue isn’t with the discount carrying over. The issue I’m having is that my plan is a smart plan with annual upgrades. When I went into store they said I couldn’t do the annual upgrade as I had f&f discount. The whole reason I took out the smart plan rather than the standard one was because of the annual upgrade. Nowhere in the f&f discount t&cs does it state that if you have the discount you can’t take advantage of the annual upgrade.

Thanks

Rosi

[mikeliuk]

Hi @rosijaypierce ,

Do you have any option on My EE to try to access the annual upgrade? (E.g. that it says you are eligible to upgrade online now?)

Perhaps the person you spoke to was mistaken or misguidedly trying to help you by avoiding a discount falling off (and might have been mistaken there also).

Does this link give you any additional upgrade options? https://shop.ee.co.uk/auth/upgrade/recommendations

[rosijaypierce]

Hi @mikeliuk 

 When I look online now it says I can upgrade early but says there is an early upgrade fee of over £400 (as if it was a standard plan not a smart plan) It’s all a bit confusing! In store, he was almost about to hand the phone over so everything had been fine up to that point. To be honest, it seemed like nobody was sure why the system wouldn’t allow them to do the upgrade so they put it down to that. At first they seemed to think I’d bought the phone from a 3rd party which was why it wasn’t allowing an upgrade. Nobody seemed to know what was going on! I think I might have to give EE a call and see if anyone can get to the bottom of it. 

Thanks

Rosi

[mikeliuk]

Hi @rosijaypierce ,

I'm quite a recent SIM-only Smart Plan customer and my understanding is that an early upgrade of a pay monthly contract should require the device to be paid off early.

I would recommend double checking the terms and conditions of your plan to see which section says you don't need to make that payment.

https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/terms-and-conditions

I would agree that it's shoddy if no one in the store knows what's going on, and would be bad again if you lose time in phoning to discuss.

Financially, I think it's better to use a mobile for as many years as possible before the lack of updates are a security issue, or the old mobile no longer fits new requirements.

It's possible you may get sufficiently frustrated and confused that simply buying a phone outright from a retailer such as John Lewis or Argos would save time. You can use pricespy.co.uk and shopping.google.com to see the best prices.

It's possible that your discount might apply to the device making that very lucrative so I've would recommend to double check that the discount carries over if you rely on that.

[rosijaypierce]

Hi @mikeliuk 

Thanks for replying. The smart plan I'm on means that you're eligible for an annual upgrade with no fee (as long as it's at least 12 months since you took out the plan) by simply returning the phone and taking out a new plan. This was the reason I took out the smart plan as oppose to the standard one. It's definitely in the terms and conditions that this is correct. It just seemed like there was something on the system that wasn't letting them do the upgrade and they didn't know why. 

I'll try and get in touch with them again.

Thanks for your help.