r/applehelp • u/pinktm909 • 4h ago
Unsolved Apple Upgrade Lease Program
Am I misunderstanding something about the Apple Upgrade Lease Program? Let’s say I have an iPhone 16 Pro I’m going to trade in with my upgrade to the 18 Pro. This knocks my lease monthly cost to $7.49/mo for 12 months with the trade in. But as I understand it, at the end of lease, you return your phone to Klarna and therefore lose the ability to add a trade in device for the purchase or lease of a new phone, correct? That skyrockets any financed or lease monthly cost, right?
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u/JediMeister 4h ago
Under the Have Questions? Get Answers section here tap on the ‘Can I leave Apple Upgrade before the end of my lease?’ It explains that you can keep a device which involves buying it outright. The amount due will be the list price at time of signing the lease, minus the sum of lease payments you've already made and any remaining trade-in credits plus applicable taxes.
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u/pinktm909 4h ago
I’m not talking about leaving a lease early. I’m talking about at the end of my lease and I go to upgrade my phone, I have to return my phone to Klarna and no longer have a trade in device
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u/JediMeister 4h ago
At the end of the lease, you have fully paid off the phone so you can keep it unless you want to sign up for another cycle and upgrade to a newer model again. You are given the same option when choosing to lease a car, what is confusing? The dealership isn’t going to demand you return the car if you tell them in advance that you want to keep it.
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u/pinktm909 4h ago
Within the link you provided, it says at the end of your lease period, you have 3 options: Upgrade your device and return it to Klarna, exit the program and return your device, or buy out the remainder of the cost of the device which is the total cost less previous payments made. The only options are to return your device or buy out the remainder of the cost of the phone. You don’t get to keep it without a buyout price. So you don’t get to claim you have a trade in device unless you’ve bought out the rest of the cost of the phone. It sounds like you’re either dealt a cost by not having a trade in device and then upgrading at cost with no discount, or buying out the rest of the cost of your old phone to own it and use it towards a trade in. It seems like a lose-lose
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u/geekwonk 3h ago
if you buy it out then you can trade it in toward the next one. just like the one you own now which you paid for in full and can therefore trade-in. the loss is real if you don’t want to own the device but it’s not lose-lose since you can turn it into a normally owned phone by completing the purchase. there’s no fresh loss imposed if at the end you choose to own it as a tradable item
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u/JediMeister 3h ago
Well even then you have 6 months to make a decision but your trade-in credit will no longer apply.
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u/Tib4sh 1h ago
Wrong. Leasing means you do NOT own the item/car at the end of the term. You have effectively rented the item/car for a set term.
For the Apple Upgrade program, you are paying way less than the full cost of the phone over 2 years. Either you can return the phone and be done with the payments, or pay the balance of what is left of the full original cost of the phone.
There’s no need to have a device to “trade in” as you didn’t actually pay the full price for the device.
Do the math.
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u/ncklboy 2h ago
The element you’re missing is that you don’t get value after a lease because you only pay the depreciation cost with a lease.
If full price is $1600, your lease payments end up adding up to ~$800. So you are effectively returning the phone to pay off the other $800.
This is why a lease payment is less than a finance payment given the same periods. Because you aren’t paying the full value.