
Vodafone has come out swinging with an eye-catching pre-order offer for the iPhone 17 family. If you pre-order one on its new $79 promo plan, you'll get $1,200 in credit toward the purchase of the phone. This takes the form of a $33.34 per month discount on your bill.
This means you'll only pay $199 in handset fees if you were looking at the entry-level iPhone 17, for example. This makes your bill $84.51 per month for your iPhone 17 on a 36-month term with 500GB of data.
For comparison, Vodafone's cheapest "normal" iPhone 17 plan is $83.86 per month on a 36-month term with 60GB of data.
If you trade in an old phone, Vodafone will also give you a bonus $200 in credit, on top of your phone's value. Even if you were to trade in a phone with zero remaining value, such as a damaged iPhone XR, you'd bring the handset repayments down to $0 per month for a 256GB iPhone 17. This would mean you'd just pay the $79 plan fee.
The iPhone XR and iPhone XS are the oldest Apple devices Vodafone accepts for trade-in. The Galaxy S8 is the oldest Samsung device Vodafone accepts for trade-in.
If you'd prefer an iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, or iPhone 17 Pro Max, there's a larger gap, and as such, you'd need to trade in a more valuable phone to get handset repayments down to $0 per month.
There is a catch, however. Vodafone's $79 promo plan is only available on a 36-month term, and you can't change your plan or leave early. If you do, you'll forfeit any remaining credit (about $33 per month) and have to pay the full remaining value of your chosen iPhone 17.
You're effectively getting much more data by committing to the same plan for three years. This kinda makes it like the contract plans of old, where you'd be locked into a fixed term and pay a hefty breaking fee. It is worth noting the average Australian still uses less than 20GB a month, so Vodafone's standard 60GB plan should be more than enough for most.
If a three-year commitment isn't for you, Vodafone has discounts on of its other mobile plans. You'll save $8 per month on its small plan, $13 per month on its medium plan, and $18 per month on its large plan. The bonus trade-in credit can also be combined with Vodafone's core plans.
Here are Vodafone's 36-month iPhone 17 plans:
Vodafone's $1,200 discount and $200 bonus trade-in credit are available until October 14. The core plan discounts are available until October 30.
Here's how Vodafone's cheapest iPhone 17 plans compare to Telstra and Optus:
These are the most popular NBN 50 plans with WhistleOut users this week:
Alex Choros