Black Friday 2020 Verizon Deals: Best Discounts on Phones, Plans, and Accessories

The Verizon 2020 Black Friday ad scan was full of incredible offers, like a free iPhone 12 or a “Buy One, Get One” Samsung Galaxy. But what does ‘free’ really mean? In practice, these doorbuster deals often come with specific rules that can make them confusing. The best price advertised is rarely the price everyone gets.

For instance, an amazing BOGO deal almost always requires you to add a brand-new line of service, not just upgrade your current phone. Furthermore, many discounts aren’t given upfront but are applied as small credits on your monthly bill over two or three years. These details are often buried in the fine print, leaving you to wonder what the real cost is.

To find the best promotions, you need to look past the marketing jargon. This guide breaks down the real offers for upgrading an existing phone, adding a line for a family member, or switching from another carrier, helping you decode the Black Friday deals to find one that actually saves you money.

Summary

This guide demystifies Verizon’s 2020 Black Friday deals by explaining bill credits and the frequent requirement to add a new line. It shows which offers fit each situation: trade-ins for loyal upgraders, BOGO for adding a line, and stackable switcher credits for newcomers. Because Verizon and AT&T closely matched headline discounts, choosing the right carrier often depended more on coverage and plan perks than minor price differences. Use these principles to read the fine print and calculate true long-term costs.

The Two “Catches” in Every Verizon Deal: Understanding Bill Credits and New Lines

Ever see a deal that seems too good to be true, like “Get an iPhone 12 for free”? You’re right to be skeptical. While the savings are real, they almost always rely on two concepts you need to know before you buy.

Verizon’s best promotions are built around these ideas:

• Bill Credits: This is the most important concept. Instead of giving you a huge discount upfront, Verizon applies the savings as a credit on your monthly bill over 24 or 36 months. Think of it like a $700 discount being paid to you as a $29 gift card every month for two years.
• New Line of Service: This means adding a new phone number and plan to your account. It’s designed for adding a family member or switching from another carrier, not for upgrading your current phone.

Those “Buy One, Get One” offers are almost always for customers adding a person to their plan. You buy one phone, activate a second new line for the other, and Verizon pays you back for the second phone via monthly bill credits. If you’re a loyal customer who just wants to upgrade your own phone, you won’t use a “new line” deal. Instead, your path to savings is through a trade-in.

For Loyal Customers: How to Use a Trade-In to Upgrade Your Phone in 2020

If you weren’t looking to add a new line to your account, your best path to savings was the trade-in deal. This is the classic way to upgrade your Verizon phone during holiday sales: you give Verizon your old phone, and they give you a discount on a new one. Instead of paying full price, the value of your old device is subtracted from the cost of the new one, lowering your monthly payment.

The value of your old phone determined your discount. Trading in a recent, high-end model like an iPhone 11 could net you up to $550 off a new device, while an older model might only fetch $100. This savings was then applied as bill credits. For example, a top-tier iPhone 12 promotion could take an $800 phone and, with a $440 trade-in credit, drop your monthly cost to just $15 over 24 months.

Getting the maximum discount, however, often came with one more requirement: you had to be on one of Verizon’s Premium Unlimited plans. If you were on an older, cheaper, or non-unlimited plan, you might still get a trade-in offer, but it wouldn’t be for the maximum advertised amount. The biggest savings were reserved for customers on their best plans.

The best upgrade deals required the perfect combination: a valuable phone to trade in and being on the right Unlimited plan.

What “Buy One, Get One” Really Meant in 2020

Of all the promotions, “Buy One, Get One” was often the most powerful and misunderstood. It sounds simple—buy a new phone and get a second one free—but it came with a critical requirement. To qualify, you had to add at least one new line of service. This meant the offer wasn’t for two people upgrading their existing phones; it was designed for customers expanding their accounts.

The “free” phone also wasn’t free the moment you walked out of the store. The discount was paid back to you through monthly bill credits, usually over 24 or 36 months. For example, with a popular Samsung Galaxy S20 offer, you would purchase both phones, and then Verizon would apply a monthly credit to your bill that canceled out the payment for the second device.

This structure made BOGO deals a fantastic way to save money on a family plan. They were ideal for families adding a line for a teenager, for a partner moving onto your plan, or for anyone who was already planning to add a new person to their account. If you were in that specific situation, a BOGO deal effectively gave you a flagship phone for free, making it one of the most valuable offers available.

Switching to Verizon? How New Customers Got Big Discounts in 2020

For those thinking of leaving a competitor, Verizon rolled out the red carpet. The company aggressively targeted new customers with “switcher credits”—lump-sum bonuses designed to persuade you to make the jump. To qualify, you had to port-in, which simply means you bring your existing phone number with you from another carrier like AT&T or T-Mobile. Offers often included a prepaid gift card worth hundreds of dollars, effectively paying you for the hassle of switching.

The real power of these deals was that they could often be combined with other promotions. For instance, some of the best Google Pixel 5 promotions allowed a new customer to get a discount for trading in their old device and still receive a separate switcher bonus on top of it. This layering of offers created some of the most significant savings of the entire Black Friday event, far exceeding what was available to existing customers who were just upgrading.

This aggressive strategy begs the question: was this kind of incentive unique, or was every carrier fighting just as hard for your business?

Verizon vs. AT&T: A Look at 2020’s Black Friday Showdown

When it came to the year’s biggest phone releases, the Verizon vs. AT&T Black Friday offers looked like they were reading from the same playbook. Both carriers aggressively pushed the new iPhone 12, and their flagship deals were nearly identical. You could get “up to $700 off” at either company, but the fine print revealed the same requirements: trade in a recent, high-value phone and commit to a premium unlimited data plan.

This isn’t a coincidence; it’s a common strategy. During huge sales events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, major carriers monitor each other’s moves in real-time. They quickly match headline promotions to ensure a customer won’t switch simply because a rival is offering $50 more for a trade-in. The iPhone 12 promotion at Verizon, for instance, was carefully crafted to be just as appealing as AT&T’s, making the decision much harder than just comparing dollar signs.

For many shoppers, agonizing over which deal was “better” was a dead end. Since the final savings were so similar, the more important question became, “Which carrier is better for me?” The deciding factor often had nothing to do with the specific deal but with things like network coverage in your home, customer service reputation, or perks included with their unlimited plans.

So, Which 2020 Verizon Deal Was Right for You?

Verizon’s Black Friday deals were complicated, but they all boiled down to a few key scenarios. By matching the promotion to your specific situation, you could find the best value.

To find your perfect match from the 2020 offers, you just had to ask what you needed:

• Just wanted to upgrade your phone? The best option was finding the highest trade-in value deal, which required a valuable older phone and a premium unlimited plan.
• Needed to add a phone for a family member? The BOGO offer was your best bet. It rewarded customers for adding a new line of service.
• Unhappy with your old carrier? The switcher credit, often combined with a trade-in, was the biggest money-saver of all.

By understanding the difference between a trade-in, a BOGO deal, and a switcher credit, you can see past the headline marketing and calculate a deal’s true value. Matching the offer to your specific need is how you truly win during any major phone sale.