How I got early upgrades for the iPhone

Ok, so since yesterday, a bunch of people have been asking me how I managed to upgrade my phone early. It goes back several years.

We have 2 phones on our account, and they don't come up for renewal at the same time. One was always ahead of the other one.  So 2 years ago when the iPhone 4 came out I looked at our plan and low and behold Jessica's phone was eligilbe for the upgrade discount. So I went out and bought her the iPhone 4.  I had the 3GS at the time. A few months went by and I was insanely jealous of how amazing the iPhone 4 retina screen looked, so I went to our local AT&T store and asked about upgrading my phone. I wasn't eligible for the discount, and I didn't want to spend an extra $250 to upgrade without the discount.  Now, at the same time I was seriously interested in switching our home internet/cable provider from Comcast to AT&T Uverse. Mostly because I just really liked the features and interface that Uverse offered. So I said to the guy at the AT&T store, "What if I decide to switch to Uverse?"  At this point he went and got another guy, who clearly had the authority to swing deals, and we were talking!  After a few minutes of negotiating, I switched our home internet/cable provider to Uverse (which I wanted to do anyway), and I got a 32gb iPhone 4 for the fully discounted price.

So that's how I got the iPhone 4.  Then the iPhone 4s came out 10 months later.  So I checked our upgrade availalbility online again. By now, Jessica was eligible for the upgrade, again, but I wasn't. So I bought a 4S for Jessica and then had AT&T switch out the SIM cards so that I got the 4S and Jessica still had the iPhone 4.  She isn't as tech obsessed as I am (understatement).

A year after that (last week), the iPhone 5 comes out, and now my line is eligible for the discounted upgrade, so bam I get myself a iPhone 5.

All the while, I'm selling the old iPhones to friends or on ebay, and basically making back most of the cost of dicounted iPhones.

So, a year from now, Jessica's line will be eligible, and we can do it all again.