In honor of the iPhone 3G S launch today, I thought I’d point out a humorous little deal circulating around the web. Apparently, you can use Microsoft’s Cashback program that it runs through its search engine (and now through Bing), to get a healthy 35% discount off of the device.
Depending on your eligibility for AT&T’s subsidy (more on that here), that means you can get an iPhone 3G S 16 GB for $129.35, the 32 GB version for $194.35. Or, perhaps even better, an 8 GB iPhone 3G for $64.90. Yes, you can get a new iPhone for $65 — thanks to Microsoft. Crazy.
Here’s is a full rundown of how to make it happen:
New iPhone Contracts Only:
1. Visit ATT Wireless website and validate your email address with Premier.
2. Check your email and click the link to your ATT Premier Store.
3. Open a new tab with the same browser that your ATT Premier Store is open in.
4. Go to bing.com in the new tab and search “att wireless”
5. Click the 35% CashBack Sponsored Link
6. Sign into your CashBack account and get redirected to the main AT&T Wireless page.
7. In the top right enter the term “Premier” into the search bar.
8. Click the first link that reads “at&t premier login”
9. You will get directed to the same Premier store you have open in the original tab.
10. Congratulations, you are in the Premier store under the CashBack AT&T SiteIf you have an account with AT&T and you just want to make an upgrade or add a line:
1. Go to bing.com
2. Search ” ATT WIRELESS “.
3. Click the AT&T sponsored link, you will redirected (after you enter your email) to either the regular AT&T store or the Premier store depending on which account you have
4. Log in to your account and make your purchase.
5. The cashback will show up as “pending” after a couple of hours.
6. If it takes more than 48 hours for the cashback to show up, contact bing’s customer service then you will asked for your order number, method of payment( I attached my whole purchase order to the email): You cash will show up within hours
I have no idea if this will actually work — it may go against AT&T’s rules for device — but if you’re seeing all the hype today and still looking to buy one online, it’s worth a shot.
[via IntoMobile]
[Thanks Nick]
Old news if you went to fatwallet.com in the last year. Go back to waiting on line for the Win95 launch.
it is not old news for me. I wish I know ahead of the time. It will save me $100 US
How come you are not castigating this promotion?
it’s not a promotion. more like a trick.
This is NOT a trick. I guess you are completely clueless on how casback sites work. %cashback for buying through referral sites is a normal promotional and customer acquisition tools for last 10 year.
This is not news. As lot of people here already mentioned, this is so yesterday. A google (or bing) search would show you these cashback opportunities very easily.
Come one, dks123, I don’t think most people are aware that you can get such a huge cashback. I didn’t know it.
@Ken
Ignorance does not warrant calling it a trick
Old stuffs
Boring… YAWN!!
I really wonder if this would work
my head is spinning from the whole procedure
I saved $200 off a macbook pro using live.com (old bing.com). Always a sweet irony having MSFT send me money for buying Apple..
It doesn’t work if you purchase through premier. This is posted on slick deals.
Thanks for the link MG. Was nice seeing you on CNN today too!
Thanks. Good to be seen.
Odd that there is no way to verify is this is going to work before I make my purchase. The total checkout price still reads $399 (again, fuck you ATT).
The checkout price will be the same, but your cashback balance at Bing.com is supposed to go up. I think you’re confusing this for an instant rebate.
Ironic that you threaten to give it to ATT while they are already giving it to you. You are a catcher not a pitcher. You are taking it. LOL
This is what I did. I bought an iPhone on eBay for $150. I unlocked it with QuickPWN, and I use it with T-Mobile on the $29/phone $24 data plan for F’ING free.
You know what I mean?
So what if the boot up splash screen is a pineapple. I have T-Mobile edge on it and Skype works with WIFI. FSCK AT&T.
Some AT&T/Rogers executives in Canada are part of the mafia imported from Italy. They control the ministry of public works and run a paid for legalization monopoly. Yet another reason not to deal with them.
Chris, do you know….
1) How hard is it unlock the pohone
2) Can you use any carrier with it, Verizon always had great service but shitty phones, now I have the awesome I-Phone with shitty service
Alan
Alan, the iPhone runs on GSM networks ONLY which means only TMobile and AT&T can provide coverage for it (In the USA that is, in Europe the choice of carriers is MUCH larger)…
This ain’t rocket science. Not every phone will work on any service.
I just tried this. I was planning on buying a phone online today anyway. I’ll post an update if it works.
Why would you post an update?
Blog posts on TC drop off the front page after 2 hours or so, and are never read again.
In 6-8 weeks when you get your Cash Back, you’ll be posting 60 pages into an archive.
Dan -
He’ll know in a few hours when it shows up in his Bing account – not 6 to 8 weeks.
So here’s the update so far. I purchased the phone and waited for 2 days for the money to show up in my cashback account… except it didn’t. I contacted support, they had me send in my confirmation email and they responded saying I qualified for cashback saving and that my account has been credited with $69.65. Great news, right? Except the money still doesn’t show up in my account. And they say it will stay as “pending” for 60 days from the date of purchase. Long story short, it looks like it’s going to work, but they make you work for every penny of it.
I bought a macbook pro this way too – it was nice to see a MSFT wiring a couple of hundred bucks my paypal account for that.
Here’s the elusive terms: http://www.wire...sConditions.jsp
I’m not seeing “Premier” on the front page of the ATT Wireless, or the normal AT&T websites. Am I missing something?
According to Slick Deals, this is for new lines only. Anyone else heard differently?
I love it, thanks for the post. I’m thinking about buying a phone and this helps.
From the terms Ian posted:
“Upgrades, add-a-lines and GoPhone (prepaid) service are not eligible for the cashback program.”
So it looks like my dream of owning a 3G S before my 3G’s contract is up are dashed once again.
Allan, you pasted incorrectly:
“a.upgrades, add-a-lines or device purchases with GoPhone (prepaid) service;”
Awesome, thanks for the post!
Well, according to the link that Ian posted, “ii.You must purchase the items specific to the cashback program and activate new wireless service on a qualified rate plan with a two¿year contract. Upgrades, add-a-lines and GoPhone (prepaid) service are not eligible for the cashback program.”
So people with 3Gs or original iphones can’t get the cashback anyways.
The New Iphone 3G S is Ok!
-http://www.webedesigner.com
Just needs more stuff!
http://www.webedesigner.com
That was my take on the rebate also. Usually rebates is to bring in new customers. To bad you hardly rebates for existing loyal customers!
Here’s the catch for current ATT customers:
“Upgrades, add-a-lines and GoPhone (prepaid) service are not eligible for the cashback program.”
So you’re SOL if you are an existing customer. Thanks again ATT for screwing your loyal customers!
But that’s not what it says – Among the ineligible purchases is this:
“upgrades, add-a-lines or device purchases with GoPhone (prepaid) service”
That could be taken two ways. One is that ALL of things listed are ineligible – that is, upgrades are ineligble, add-a-lines are ineligble, and purchases with GoPhone service are ineligble.
But another way to interpret this is “any transaction with GoPhone service, including upgrades, add-a-lines, or device purchases, are ineligble”
Big difference, and it isn’t clear to me which is true. I’m not sure that the second way I listed even makes sense.
Thanks waiting42012. You saved me some bucks !!!
ATT Sucks.. and i hate these fine prints.. hidden costs.. hidden charges..
How dare AT&T want to enforce a subsidized product!
according to the posted TOS, this will not work for upgrades, as the article implies it might. I’m glad I read the TOS first.
I am getting tired of all this posts about the iphone. Shouldn’t this post be on Mobilecrunch?
while I’m reading tc recently, I double check the url to make sure I am not on appleinsider or applematters.
Basically, it looks like you have to be a new customer to AT&T to take advantage of this deal, per the terms mentioned in above comments. I tried this deal before reading those terms, so I probably won’t see any changes to my bing.com account since I’m an upgrading customer. I’ll post if there are any surprises.
I also took advantage prior to reading the terms. I am a current ATT customer so I probably will not be getting the rebate. Ohh well.
On the up side ATT gave me the full discount ($199 16 gig 3GS). Just a few days ago they would only give me a partial discount ($299 for the 16 gig).
More great journalism – with a last sentence of, “I have no idea if this will actually work…”
This blog should be called TechShit
Jason, its a free BLOG, its not the wall street journal. no ones claiming its journalistic supremacy. stop bitching.
Yap, it’s there for anyone to grap. I used it last year and I am using it this year on the iphones I bought, I got every penny back in the % promised. No problems whatsoever.
Don’t use the premier account or for upgrades. An easier way to do this is below.
New iPhone Contracts Only:
1. Visit ATT Wireless website and validate your email address with Premier.
2. Check your email and click the link to your ATT Premier Store.
3. Open a new tab with the same browser that your ATT Premier Store is open in.
4. Go to bing.com in the new tab and search “att wireless”
5. Click the 35% CashBack Sponsored Link
6. Sign into your CashBack account and get redirected to the main AT&T Wireless page.
7. Click on Shop Link on the top bar
8. Click on PDAs/Smartphones
9. Select the iphone and complete purchase with 2 yrs contract
10. cashback/email should show up in 24 hrs
can someone explain the Visit ATT Wireless website and validate your email address with Premier. step?
did you ever get your answer to this? i am trying to figure that out myself. Please advise…
Premier is not eligible, better off just buying directly from their shopping site
Bing does not provide cash bask on AT&T GoPhone(prepaid), but some other cash back websites such as DealDigs.com do provide $5 cash back. I have bought three GoPhones from these websites and got all the cash back.
“Want A Super Cheap iPhone 3G S? Bing It.” Or….don’t use Bing and just steal it >:D!
Microsoft’s heavily covered Bing has been called a decision engine – by Microsoft – which I don’t understand as it’s just a search engine. I think it’s a good search engine, for what it’s worth, but not a decision engine. Hunch is what you’d expect a decision engine to be. You ask a question like,
“Should I get an iPhone or a Pre?” and it helps you make a decision. In theory.
It’s still growing, not all questions work, and it’s very much a US site – English people have to remember to say vacation, not holiday! I thought I’d put Hunch through it’s paces and see if I agreed with it. To my first question, above, Hunch said I was 99% in favour of an iPhone. I tried Xbox 360 versus Playstation 3, and was told I was 60% in favour of an Xbox. That’s lucky, as I’ve already got one.
is there an expiration date for this promotion, or will this go on forever
can someone explain the Visit ATT Wireless website and validate your email address with Premier step?
If you are an individual, and not a Business, you can ignore the “Premier” part of the explanation. In fact, I just read elsewhere that some claim that using AT&T Premier inconjunction with this BING Cashback program would be like “combining offers,” in a sense, and would thus invalidate BING Cashback eligibility (this has not been 100% confirmed, to my knowledge)
First, read through the AT&T/BING Cashback terms as was provided earlier in this comment thread – http://www.wire...sConditions.jsp
Here’s a revised, rough, outline of steps for new AT&T Customers -
1. Visit https://cashbac...ck/welcome.aspx
2. First, create a Windows Live(BING) ID, if needed.
A link to “use an existing email address” of yours is provided
3. If/when you have a Windows Live(BING) ID, its confirmation email will lead you back to the BING Cashback webpage – “Need a Cashback Account?” Click orange [sign up] button.
4. Once signed-up for BING Cashback using your Windows Live(BING) ID, proceed to bing.com and search for “att wireless”
5. Click the 35% CashBack Sponsored Link near the top of the search results.
6. Follow the prompts to sign into your BING CashBack account, enter the provided capcha characters and you will then be redirected to the main AT&T Wireless page.
7. Go forth and place your iPhone order as a “new customer” of AT&T.
8. After your order is completed, you will receive an AT&T Order Confirmation email.
9. Log into your BING Cashback account after 24 hours to see if your AT&T order is shown – check under the ‘pending’ tab, too.
NOTE: It is important than you do the above steps one-after-the-other, during one ’session’ so that your order is properly acknowledged by the BING Cashback program.
I have a “premier” account and I did successfully use the offer and receive cashback (35%). It did not initially show up and I had to forward my purchase order to customer support. But I did get credit in the end.
Are you an existing customer if so what info did you submit…
you can get a new iPhone for $65 — thanks to Microsoft. Crazy
I’m looking for phones that enable us to send free SMS like this site do: http://tinurl.mobi/fullfreesms
Should I bing it?
I plan to use Google Voice (its website directly, if not via a GV iPhone app) and use its built-in SMS capability. If they can add push-notification to Google Voice’s SMS feature that sure would be *swell* …and a nice way to circumvent Text Messaging fees!
Hi, thanks for the tip, I just received the cash back, close to $70 dollars, wonderful, thanks Microsoft!!!
can you do this going into an att store or is this for online orders only
@ace ventrua – Sure you can do this in a store. Take your wireless enabled laptop to the store then open your web browser and proceed to go to http://www.bing.com and login, search for att, now click the 35%…… Lets have some common sense people.
Worked for me! Here’s the proof: http://www.twitpic.com/8e9i3. Thank you all so much. You have to wait 60 days to get the $$$, but better late than never!
Although I have read so many cases where people successfully got a cashback even for the upgrade but surprisingly did not work for me for the upgrade. Here is the letter bing cashback customer service wrote to me. Any tips what I should do next…thinking of returning the phone.
As per AT&T’s service agreement, phones purchased as an upgrade rather than a new line of service, are not eligible to receive cashback. In case you would like to review it on your own here is a link to the AT&T Service Agreement: http://www.wire...sConditions.jsp . The passage that states upgrades are not allowed in conjunction with cashback is iii (a).
Once again I would like to apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused, and I want to ensure that your request has been resolved. However, if you realize that you are still in need of assistance, please reply to this email
Man…all this hype over the iphone 3Gs. It’s not revolutionary technology wise. There are a ton of others very similar to it (e.g. the Samsung Eternity A867, LG Vu, etc) and will cost you ZERO dollars. AT&T and Verizon both have these phones for FREE as well as free activation. Tiger Direct has it for “free” (we all know the long term contract is how they justify giving the phone away). Even Fed Ex shipping is free.
Hmmm….lets compare:
iPhone 3Gs
High Cost
1Carrier (AT&T only) – the worst
several problems still exists (phone wise)
Current users get the shaft in the ass when they find out it costs $200-400 to upgrade leading to
Pissed off customers
Samsung Eternity
FREE
Multiple carriers (4 stateside)
loaded with features (including that nice touch screen w/ drag/drop or “magic wall”
happy customers
Oh yeah….AT&T has the 3g 8GB phone for .99 cents (new customers). Thats a good deal for a sweet multimedia phone, despite the numerous flaws
so the apple website gives a warning prior to the checkout screen which states iPhone 3GS may not ship for 7-14 days, presumably based on availability. anyone know whats up? i’d really like to take advantage of the chance to get a ~200$ 32gb
I ordered my iPhone 3GS 32gb Black from AT&T online store on Monday 6/22.
(got the 7-14 day disclaimer, too.)
Received BING Cashback ‘pending status’ notification email on 6/23.
On Friday 6/26 8pm PST, received email from AT&T stating it had shipped and would arrive Monday 29th!
So it shipped 4 days after I ordered it…
right after its debut weekend, no less.
Bear in mind, I did not port my phone number, or have any ‘credit issues’ (as mentioned in the 7-14 day shipping disclaimer)
the only problem with this is……you can’t register if you don’t have a current att phone number and PIN.
Buyer beware. Good luck, because it all depends on Bing. I tried this, and have had 3 3GS phones now for over a week. I have sold the old phones on eBay now, but STILL haven’t heard back from Bing customer support. They have no phone number, they don’t send email responses, and they don’t respond in their forums.
This cashback system of theirs is about as good as a Nigerian email scam.
I love the phone, but don’t make a buying decision based on this offer, YOU WON’T GET YOUR MONEY.
does any one knows that i phone works in india?
john
Unfortunately for many customers they have not been reliable in honoring the cashback requests. Please read more about this at http://digg.com/d1wcdx – When presented with the screenshots and evidence from customers at this Get Satisfaction link, the initial response from Bing Cashback has been to stay silent. With only a few customers posting there so far, this is a good strategy for them if they expect this to go unnoticed. Negative experiences please post your Bing Cashback ticket number so they can help you if they so choose. Positive experiences please post so that it can be documented they have already honored this in some cases, and should do the same for the rest of us. By posting your experiences, you help to hold them to what was advertised and remind them to deal with you in an honest manner in the future. Thank you for your help with this.
i will love 2 have a iphone3g because my dad will not buy me 1
Would someone please explain, why would Bing provide such huge discounts? Are they paying a difference or do they just have a special deal with Apple?