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Phone contracts specifically, I can't believe people pay $50-100 a month, and don't understand what benefits they could be getting from it.
Usually the newest iPhone. They’re expensive, so only paying 20-30 extra over 2 years generally works well for people, especially those who can’t afford 1000 dollars up front or don’t want to pay the whole shot unless they irreparably break it.
If you’re careful with your stuff this is a non-issue but those people tend more often to have 1000 dollars laying around.
Most credit cards have a 6 or even 12-month zero-interest financing period. Amazon store cards have this.
I sold carrier phones for years. I'm on Mint and buy my phone outright and pay it off over 6 to 12 months, usually buying a ~$500 A-series pixel or Oneplus something-or-other. This is what I tell other people to do. Just about no one does. Instead they buy carrier phones.
Or a 400-dollar iPhone SE, which is the phone I recommend to everyone either unwilling or unable to install ad blocking on Android (with a side of "I could do this, but I refuse to be tech support for this person") because iOS is a better experience than Android is under those conditions and the hardware is powerful enough that, unlike Android devices, you'll actually get 7 years out of it.
It honestly shocks me that particular phone isn't what most consumers who want iOS want, but then again, sometimes you have to know enough to ask for it (and the pricing on the latest models, which aren't actually any better than the SE outside of the camera and screen size, is significantly more than the SE making consumers think there's a massive difference between the two even though there really isn't).
You cannot begin to fathom my disdain for apple products. It's a personality-type thing, getting an iPhone would be...caving in. I prefer to have something different from what most people have. Even the Pixel is becoming a smidge too mainstream for me.
Also, I take pictures of wildlife I run into, including extreme close-ups of bugs. Camera matters to me. Also, I don't think it uses USB-C yet. Otherwise I agree with you regarding the SE, but the SE doesn't convey wealth/conformity, so of course most people don't buy it.
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Huh, is that only the prime visa, or their regular one? I've been really confused ever since they sent me an updated "prime" card just because I did the 1-month prime trial.
Even knowing it's free money I never took advantage of 0% cards until recently, but it's amazing. I have $5k tools that paid for themselves long before I had to pay for them.
The Amazon Visa (from Chase) offers zero-interest financing for six months on Amazon purchases of at least 50 dollars, and for 12 months on Amazon purchases of at least 250 dollars. (There used to be an 18-month, 500-dollar offer as well, but it seems to have been discontinued.) This isn't quite free money: if you take a financing offer, you do not get the 3-percent cash back (5-percent with Prime) that you would get normally.
The Amazon Visa is not the same as the Amazon Store Card (from Synchrony) and the Amazon Secured Card (ditto). The Store Card and Secured Card offer zero-interest financing for six months on Amazon purchases of at least 50 dollars, for 12 months on Amazon purchases of at least 600 dollars, and for 24 months on "select purchases" at Amazon. The same caveat regarding lost cash back applies to the Store Card.
All information presented above is from this page (except for the 18-month parenthetical, which is from personal experience).
Yeah, I saw the difference between the store cards and the chase visa, but my confusion was with the prime vs non-prime chase card. The only advertised difference is the 5% vs 3% cash back, but that's entirely a function of the prime membership rather than the card itself.
Was very confused why they sent me a new (prime) card in the mail two weeks after my prime trial expired.
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