Why pay full price for an IPhone 3G? Just open a new line!!

I'm not quite sure why people would decide to fork up retail $600 for the new IPhone 3G (when they don't meet AT&T's eligibility requirements). In my opinion, you're better off giving your original line to somebody else and opening a second line. Furthermore, you can put it all on a family plan and share some of the costs. There's an endless number of people in my family who would jump at the opportunity to join in on my plan. A month ago, my girlfriend was using a windows mobile device on T-Mobile, I was using a blackberrry on a seperate T-Mobile account, and my daughter was hassling me about buying her first phone. Well today, all three of us have IPhone 3G's, we are on the same family plan, we are much happier with the phone experience, and........ we are saving money!

As far as I understand, any new lines added to your plan are eligible for the special IPhone pricing. A no-brainer in my case.

Traded my 1st Generation IPhone for a 3G

I happened to be one of those people who purchased a first gen IPhone from AT&T within 14 days of Apple announching the 3G (May 28, 2008 to be exact). Needless to say, I was bummed when I heard the 3G announcement, knowing I wouldn't be able to upgrade for an entire year, yet I had paid twice as much. Lucky for me, AT&T actually made a customer friendly decision. I stumbled across this post on Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/5014909/att-memo-to-retail-managers-shows-iphone-3g-policy and hoped it was legitimate since I wasn't able to find any supporting documentation on the AT&T site. Since I didn't wait in line at AT&T during launch, I missed the opportunity to purchase an early IPhone and see if this was in fact true. AT&T was only doing direct fulfillment, so I decided not to bother. Instead, I waited outside an Apple store a few weeks and purchased two 3G IPhones, with two new lines lines. This meant that I still had my original IPhone which I thought I would sell on CraigsList or giveaway to a family member.

I later changed my mind and decided to walk into an AT&T store and test my luck hoping that the Gizmodo article was in fact true. To my surprise, it was, and they refunded my entire purchase price (minus the 10% restocking fee). In the end I exchanged a 1st gen IPhone to a 3G IPhone and walked out with $200 in my pocket. To top it all off, my direct fullment took two days!