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I wonder if I should participate in the iPhone Upgrade Program - specifically based on how does ann annual upgrade affect the average age of accounts on the holder’s credit report.

Specifically, does each annual upgrade count as a new account, and thus your AAOA goes down or is it just like a credit card where it has a "new limit and balance" next month?

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  • This is excellent inside-baseball type question about the Apple stores and financing. I wonder if it’s a moot point and only people with very good credit get the program or if there’s many that would need this detail. Either way, we specialize in rare and specific questions that may take a long while for someone to report an answer. +1 by my eye…
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Sep 20, 2023 at 23:25

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Apple provides details on the program here:

Clause 2.b is as follows:

Apply for and enroll in a new iPhone Upgrade Program prior to the expiration date of your Installment Loan. This includes applying for and entering into a new 24-month 0% APR installment loan (“New Installment Loan”) with Bank. Applying for a New Installment Loan requires a new credit check.

So if you intend to upgrade every 6 to 13 months, you will have a series of financed loans, with known good payments in time on the first, with a presumably hard credit check each upgrade event. Only when you make the first payment on the second loan is the first paid in full by Apple.

You’d need a credit expert to translate this into whether this is good to have a string of successfully paid off loans or the two hard checks is bad. As I mentioned in my comment, it’s not a given that anyone with good enough credit to get the first loan would benefit or be harmed by the second contract being issued before the first is satisfied. (Or vice versa if someone where this would matter would be cleared for the first loan.)

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  • Marking as the answer since it seems each new upgrade will essentially be a new account thus affecting the AAOA, # of accounts etc on a file. As for the hard pull on each upgrade, it seems that's not a given if Citizens One is ok with the preapproval soft-pull results.
    – PHV
    Commented Sep 24, 2023 at 1:25

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