Earlier this week Telstra announced their new Upgrade and Protect product that allows you to upgrade your phone or replace a broken device within certain terms and conditions. Several readers reached out to us to remind us that Optus offers a similar plan for free.
The Optus Trade Up program is free for all Optus customers purchasing their device via a repayment plan and allows subscribers to upgrade after one year. Unlike the Telstra Plan, there’s no upfront monthly fee of $15/ month, which would be equal to $180 after 12 months.
However, the Optus plan does not provide for any upgrade path for damaged or faulty devices. For Optus customers you can opt to trade in your device on an upgrade after 12 months if you pay a once-off $149 fee for phones and $99 fee for tablets and of course your device has to be in ‘good working order”.
What’s good working order?
- Can power on and off.
- Has a fully functional touchscreen and battery.
- Is not physically damaged (e.g. does not have liquid damage, cracked, discoloured or bleeding screen (LCD) or casing, does not have any missing buttons or damage to other components such as charging ports or SIM tray).
- Does not have any missing, disassembled, customised or non-genuine parts (this does not affect your rights under the Australian Consumer Law).
- Is not cracked (including the touchscreen) and does not have any severe scratches (normal wear and tear such as light marks and scratches are okay).
- Has any locking features disabled (for example, find my iPhone on iOS devices).
- Is not IMEI blocked.
- Is the phone you purchased from us under the mobile equipment plan.
Once you trade in your phone you’ll have to enter a new 24 month Mobile repayment plan with Optus. Just like with the Telstra Plan we hope that Optus is finding a way to keep these devices in circulation. It would be an environmental catastrophe if everyone just threw out there devices after 12 months.
Pretty useless when it comes as a new service meaning you can’t keep your old number that family, friends and business associates have known for the last ten years.
From the Optus website:
“When you trade up – we pass your old phone to our second-hand device vendor. Once our vendor receives it, they prepare it for its new life, where it will either be re-used in developing nations or recycled through Mobile Muster.”