By 
A few months ago, Sprint announced that they were going to be offering a new tiered version of their popular Premier membership program. This caused a bit of an uproar for Sprint customers simply because it caused them to lose one of the program’s biggest perks, yearly upgrades.
Originally there were 2 ways to qualify for a Premier membership. You could either be a customer for 10 years (wow) or sign up for a qualifying plan that was either a $69 and above single line, or a $99 and above family plan (primary line only). The latter was the easiest as these 2 plans were probably Sprint’s most popular (and affordable) unlimited data plans for new customers who picked up the Evo 4G when it launched last year.
Then on April 1st, things changed. Sprint bumped up the plans needed to qualify for that yearly upgrade. It is now $89 for a single line and $169 for a family plan (primary line only). If you think it’s wrong how Sprint could just go and change the contract you made with them when you signed your 2 year agreement, its probably because it is.
Thanks to my friends on Twitter, I found out of a few ways people were reclaiming those precious yearly upgrades for one last time (and right before the launch of the Evo 3D). First way would be by calling Sprint customer care by dialing *2 from your cellphone or by calling them at 1-888-211-4727 and demanding your yearly upgrade back. I should note, the more saliva that spews out of your mouth during the call, the better.
But if you’re like me and haggling Sprint customer care isn’t your cup of tea, there is a slightly less… aggressive way. Simply visit this forum on SprintUsers.com and DM the Sprint Premier Team Member who is in charge of helping Sprint customers get back those lost upgrades. All you have to do is provide him with your name and primary number on your account in the DM and he will take care of the rest.
Pretty easy, right? I know this is going to help a lot of people who thought they wouldn’t be able to afford an Evo 3D and I want to thank everyone who helped provide me with this info so I could share it with you. Don’t forget to comment back here with your own results and good luck to all of you!
Also worthy of note is the fine print that only the primary phone # in the family account (no matter of plan cost) will receive this 1 yr upgrade eligibility.
Yeah that part is stupid because the primary number on the plan I am on will never use it.
Give them your money and tell them to upgrade? o_O
You can call up cust. care and change the primary number…may cause problems in the family, but it is an option to think about.
You can always upgrade the eligible phone and then switch phones. That’s what I’ve been doing to get the upgrades.
Haha but what do you do with the “old” phone numbers? Can you switch them between devices on the same account?
Yeah that’s all they do. I’ve done it at least twice when I want to steal the yearly rebate from the main line. You can take it to a store Sprint or BB in my experience and they just do a number swap on the phones.
Sweet! Thanks for the info!
Yup. That’s how the Premier program works for family plans. Should already be known…?
Just send your account number, name and phone number to this stranger and…
LOL! He only needs your name and phone number and if it didn’t work for me, I wouldn’t have posted this =)
Oh yeah, he also needs your mother’s maiden name, street you grew up on, and blood type. o_O
Dont forget you SSN and all bank account #’s. Good for Sprint for honoring this btw.
You want us to DeathMatch him? lol
Haha at first I thought he meant to put “PM” as in “Personal Message”, but then I googled it and one of the results was “Direct Message”. Confused me for a bit too. lol
Yea, I fixed this issue weeks ago. I find it wrong that they would do such a thing. The new plans weren’t suppose to take affect until you used your upgrade.
Note: in order to PM on the forum, you need to have 10 forum posts
Took me awhile to get those 10 posts in. =/
Same here, but it was kind of freeing just posting whatever and not putting a whole lot of thought into it. :-)
They just changed this requirement. As a new user you can send 2 PM’s without having to have 10 forum posts. So anyone that was still working towards 10…go send your PM’s now.
Hey everyone, Art here from the Premier team at Sprint (I’m the person who posted on the above forum. I’m just following up because we’ve streamlined the process for customers to get their lost upgrade back. Simply send an email to [email protected] with the phone number in question, when your upgrade was or would have been available, and the name on the account and we’ll get your request going – no need to post a PM or call Care. Thanks!
Its cool to get the upgrade back for those who lost it, but regardless with a locked and encrypted bootloader the EVO 3d is probably not gonna sell as well as HTC and sprint hoped.
Not nearly as many people care about, or even know about bootloaders. The only sales they’ll lose are from the small user base of hackers that more than likely weren’t going to be purchasing this phone anywyas.
Nah, nobody except the Android modding community cares about locked bootloaders. And we only make up 2% of the market. Evo 3D will sell just fine. Maybe not as well as the original Evo since no one can upgrade to it! Lol
Ok, I see this alot and I just have to question it. Why/How are people just throwing out these random 2%, 5% community numbers when you have absolutely zero idea who does what with their phone. I mean there are 3 million users on XDA alone, and I can name atleast 5-6 more sites like that with heavy traffic daily. And no phones are selling 100 million units, so are you saying those 3 million users on xda aren’t hacking their phones. So if they are only 3% then you are talking 100+ million phones being sold correct??? I think you guys are taking the number of people who mod phones lightly. Just a thought.
Excellent points. The informed Android users may not be that small of a portion of the overall population of Android users.
Eh?, idk, besides a couple ppl in realife i know, everybody i run into w/android fone from cricket-atnt are clueless, have no clue what rooting, mobile hotspot or amazon app store is lol! But after they run into my nosey ass, they get a small education
Umm cricket=poor you have to have a computer to mod and I dont think I have ever seen a huwaii ascend hacked…. Just my 2¢
HTC is “reviewing” their bootloader decision. So who knows if it’s going to be locked. Not that it matters anyway because it’s only a matter of time before it’s cracked.
If Google’s 400,000 Android activations per day is true, then it shouldn’t be that hard to believe that only a low percentage of Android owners care about rooting their phones. I personally only know one other person who has, but know several people with Androids
This is a flawed argument. Many of the people who make up that 2% are developers, programmers, alpha- and beta-testers and are, in general, the first people who are willing to try out a new phone or new technology and who will provide the companies, in turn, with their earliest and potentially most valuable feedback. Alienating them means it will be harder to get early adoption, community buzz and the grassroots support that can make a particular phone a milestone instead of a fizzle.
IT WORKED FOR ME..CALLED AND THRETEND TO CANCLE MY SERVICES AND I GOT MY FULL UPGRADE,AND WHILE I WAS TALKING TO HER I KEEP DROPPING CALLS,SO SPRINT GAVE ME A AIRWAVE FOR FREE WITH NO MONTHLEY FEE
I called them up over a week ago, got transferred to an account rep and she had me set in 5 minutes. Spent a total of 15 minutes on phone!
Same here, except I called in the middle of April.
As a mod of SprintUsers if this guy wasnt legit…THAT THREAD AND HIS ACCOUNT WOULD BE GONE!!!
Sprint told me they could re-activate my full upgrade for this year only, is that what they told you all too?
YUP! =D
Bittersweet! We can upgrade this year but not for full next year >_> Better than nothing I suppose lol
What if your primary line last upgraded in December? Can you still get the upgrade back for this upcoming December?
i got on the chat from sprint.com over a week ago and the rep bumped my account up to gold as of June 14th….which i wonder if thats the launch date also
Wow, I just called sprint, and rather than spitting venom I was being nice. Holy crap, they not only gave me back my gold status, they gave me 300 extra minutes a month for no extra charge. I don’t think I’m ever leaving sprint!
No need to call and threaten. Just call and explain what happened with the upgrade and they will put it back. I did this when the ns4g released and it worked. I even ordered my nexus in the same call.
Sorry….But as an 11 year Sprint Customer….Yearly upgrades should be left for us. Considering they treat new customers better.
Understood, but Sprint wants to attract new business and the way to do that is to entice new customers. I would allow long time Sprint users a platinum membership. I’d give them something like free tethering.
I just got off the phone with Renee at Sprint account services and she upgraded me back to the $150.00 amount and I am not even a premier customer. LOL Just told her I wanted either the 3D or the Atrix if it dropped in June and she switched me over. Waiting for her confirmation e-mail now. #Skillz
It’s cool that they are doing this, but it doesn’t excuse them from what they did. This is the very reason I opted out of my contract. I was furious. Lol
I was able to resolve this issue with Chat, which I recommend! I was told to call 1-800-777-4681 after June 1.
Erm… I don’t consider myself a hacker by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like the fact that I can root my g2x so as to use titanium backup on it…
I’m not alone in this regard…
“I should note, the more saliva that spews out of your mouth during the call, the better.”
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Listen.. I know you are trying to be helpful/funny with this comment, but that is epic fail.. I don’t know where people get the idea (well maybe from people like you) that calling customer support with a stick up your butt increases your chances of getting what you want, or getting a bonus freebie.. IT DOES NOT.. I work in customer service (not for Sprint).. When a customer calls with an issue, the issue has to be dealt with, regardless of the attitude of the customer.. The calm rational customer gets his issue resolved, just like the spittle spewing lunatic.. And here’s the thing.. The angry customer probably REDUCES his chance of getting his issue resolved. A customer service rep only wants to get away from the angry ones, and may look harder for a way to end the call, than resolve your issue..
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The only thing angry customers do is waste time with their rants. Think of that next time your on hold for 20 minutes before a rep can help you.
Doesn’t sound like you deal with Sprints customer service my friend. Also, he did state just one of the ways people were reclaiming their status. Personally, I don’t curse and scream at them but sometimes you have to be aggressive with that cast of characters.
just say your going with verizon and they will upgrade u lol
I’ve been a Sprint customer for a number of years and over those years, I’ve never had to talk to customer service with that type of attitude.
I have no idea where you got your customer service training at but anyone with even a little experience knows that if you whine enough and keep asking to “speak to their supervisor” you will 99% of the time get your way.
My job is to provide the best possible customer service while still upholding company policy. In the end, your repeat business is far more valuable than keeping company policy.
Its their job to deter you away. One tip for everyone out there is if they deny even just once, immediately ask for the supervisor because chances are that the person your currently speaking to doesn’t even have the authority to make the decision and/or changes your requesting.
I used to work for CS (computer tech support) and we LOVED it when people asked for the supervisor because we knew they were going to get told the EXACT same thing. I would often tell the customer that several time “sure I can get you the supervisor, but he’s going to tell you the EXACT same thing”… oh it was so much fun.
As a Sprint Customer Care agent through a contracted call center, I do NOT recommend calling in demanding to keep your yearly upgrade as “recommended” by the author. You won’t get it. You may get an agent that won’t “care” instead. However, until June 30th, anyone that lost that upgrade around the April 1st deadline was given a waiver/extension. That means you could quite possibly be able to get that Evo 3D if the rumors persist (I do not have information on the release, as I get info about the same time the rest of the world does).
worked through live chat on sprint.com! thank you! i had to send them a pic of my finger print though…
Anyone know if this override is just good through Sprint store or will external vendors like Bestbuy also recognize it?
Confirmed to work at other retailers
Thanks.
And for everyone else, I just jumped on Sprint chat and asked nicely for my Upgrade back and they said sure.
Intrestingly, I checked my number with http://www.bestbuymobile.com/upgradechecker and it still says that I don’t have the full upgrade, hmm.
I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and Sprint couldn’t respond fast enough. Some of you are having a more reasonable CS experience now due to those of us who refused to put up with Sprint’s ridiculous behavior and pressed them into reality.
It worked flawlessy and they were so nice. Appreciate the tip!
Also I asked if it will work at best buy and she stated it will and BB will just call sprint national at time of purchase.. with my new replacement evo and the buy back program at BB along with my upgrade ill get phone for free plus 100 $ gift card!
How does the sprint annual upgrade work? If you joined Sprint on Evo launch day and picked up two Evo’s the 1500 minute plan what do you qualify for?
I called chatted with Sprint online yesterday, and the representative gave me a number to call and suggested that Account services or w.e would more than likely help me out.
So I gave them a call, maybe waited for 2 minutes. I tried not to be demanding, because I know when I am at work I do not like customers telling me what I will and will not do…so I tried to be sweet and she put me on hold, came back and apologized for the situation and told me I am good to go for the 1 Year Upgrade.
To people who are able to recoup their lost upgrade, can you tell me how long you have been with Sprint? I was told that the reason why people are able to recoup their lost upgrade is because they have been with Sprint for longer than a year or two (maybe not 10) and Sprint classifies them as valuable customers.
I went ahead and used Sprint Chat on sprint.com to talk with an agent (politely I might add) and I got my 1 free upgrade. I was fed some BS and then I mentioned that I should of been “grandfathered” in and Bingo, that was apparently the keyword.
I emailed Sprint customer service and they said they added a note to my account to get full upgrade price, too. They didn’t update my eligibility status, so I will have to purchase from Sprint & won’t be able to buy from a third party such as Wirefly or Amazon. But eh I’ll take it.
I called expecting to have to raise hell… But honey is less stressful, soanyway turns out I did not have to waste my energy they made all my lines (5) that had not been upgraded inthe last year eligible! Yay I can now get my new Evo, and next year will be my 10 anniversary with sprint. I have to say they are improving on customer satisfaction, and here is to another 10 years if they keep this up!
I signed up last November. I’m not looking for a new Evo or android phone, but I may be interested in a Iphone should it come to Sprint. However, that may not ever happen. Does the fact that they changed this in April affect my contract at all (meaning, can I cancel without an ETF, or am I pretty much in it till 2012?)
BTW, this is the first I have heard of it. I’m not really too impressed, between them doing this and them telling me I had to have the $10 fee (because it was a 4G phone) and then having them put the fee on ALL the smartphones.