[Ryan Coke]

After reading some things about getting to retentions (customer relations at Rogers) I decided to give it a try for my i4 upgrade. I was being offered the 399 price for a 16g phone (bought a 3g just before the 3gs came out...doh). Still have almost 2 years left in my plan, and don't spend a lot. Decided to give it a try, figured I had nothing to lose, but wanted the $159 HUP price.

Call up, explain my situation a bit with the regular guy, and of course there is nothing he can do. Then (very nicely) asked what my contract buy out would be as I am thinking about moving to Bell. He tells me ($500, the max) and kind of dismisses the fact that it I would want to go that route. So then I just said that it is what I expected, and how do I go about doing that. That was the key I think, since now he had to move it to retentions.

Retentions guy was good, just explained my plight and said I am thinking about buying out my contract, and I was wondering if he had any flexibility on the price for the upgrade. After a few minutes of typing, he tells me he can offer me the 159 price.

Figured if they said they could do nothing for me, and that I was stuck with the $399 price, then I could've just said that I wanted to think a bit more about whether I wanted to do the buy out and gotten off the phone.

I'll definitely try to use this again in a year or so and see if I can work my plan a little more, but for now I am happy having saved $240 on the phone upgrade.

Edit---good info there silentsim, I'll have to remember that one.