After the announcement of the new Samsung phone, you will receive an email. Now this is important DO NOT click on the Upgrade Now link in that email. Instead read on and you will see it tells you to go to the Samsung Upgrade Lounge along with your loan agreement number. I think this really should be clearer and the other links not even in the email if you’re already part of the program. I very nearly, like I imagine many others, clicked the upgrade now link and then selected trade in. It was only me thinking that I don’t want to trade in, made me luckily double check the email.

• Once in the Samsung Upgrade Lounge input your loan agreement number. You will probably have to wait until the next day after the announcement for the programme to show you can upgrade. Now you can choose your new phone from here.
• Here in the UK Samsung use Klarna Bank to set up your repayment loan. You will be emailed with all the details of your purchase including a pdf of the Klarna agreement. When all is complete you may be given an affiliate code to offer 10% saving for friends, if they use it you will receive a 10% voucher.
• Each year the new 24 month contract may go up or even come down. In 2020 mine went up by £2 a month, but 2021 for the equivalent phone it actually came down £5 a month, so I opted for the larger 512gb version this time.
• After a few days you will receive an upgrade order confirmation email with your reference number and it will tell you that shortly you will receive a return pack in the post for your old device.
• Klarna will email you to say Samsung has informed them that you are taking advantage of the upgrade programme. The payment plan for your order has now been paused for 30 days while you return the goods. Check your communications from Samsung Electronics (UK) Ltd for return instructions and next steps.
• Once Samsung receives your return, Klarna will cancel your original payment plan and settle the remaining balance. Your new payment plan for your upgraded order will continue according to your new agreement.
• If you are not planning to return your old phone and decide to keep both, you can still cancel the return. However you will obviously still have to pay out the original payment plan as it will resume after 30 days, so you will be paying out for both.

Now just wait for your shiny new phone to arrive. You will receive sms updates as well as email giving you a date, time and tracking info when the parcel will arrive.

1. Now you don’t necessarily need to do this as smart switch will transfer everything, so you can skip to the next step. However for peace of mind i like to back up to the cloud just in case if something were to go wrong during the transfer. Before turning on and using your new phone firstly you will want to backup all of your accounts, contacts, gallery, messages, whatsapp and call logs etc. Great thing is once you’ve set these up then they will just work in the background auto backing up overnight everyday.

• Samsung account, Go to Settings > Accounts and backup. I use this to backup all my contacts, call logs, sms messages, clock, home screen and apps.
• Whatsapp, Go to Settings > Chats > Chat backup. It backs up to google drive, again I choose daily.
• Gallery, For this I use Google photos, backing up with high quality. (Only unlimited and free until June 2021)

If you’ve already set all these up, then simply just do a manual sync and update just before you start the transfer.

2. Download the smart switch app, just follow the onscreen instructions and choose to do either wireless or cable transfer. Cable will be faster, wireless can take an hour or more, especially if you have many photos and apps installed.

You will receive an email and sms telling you they are shipping out a returns bag for you to return your phone. This is usually within 7 days after you have received your new phone. Inside the pack is the instructions of what you need to do, which is very simple really.

• Remove pin codes
• Remove accounts ie. Samsung, Google.
• Delete all files
• Remove your sim card and memory card
• All this can be done by simply factory resetting the phone. Go to Settings > General Management > Reset > Factory Data reset.

Hopefully you kept the phones box from last year that you can put it in to keep it safe. You could go one step further and also use the outer box the phone was shipped in. (If you didn’t keep the old you can use the box the new phone was shipped in) This is how Samsung shipped it so I figured best to just do the same and make sure that the phone should return safely in one piece. Unfortunately the bag they supply isn’t big enough to fit the outer box in, so I had a larger bag of my own I used.

• Samsung only asks for the device back. You can keep the box and the accessories that came with it. Using the box to send the phone back in will help to prevent any damage in transit.
• For a little more piece of mind you can document it with pictures and video showing that it powers on and charges before sending it back.
• If the upgrade process is not completed within 30 days, Klarna will resume the collection of payments for your current device resulting in payments for 2 devices every month.
• There is no paperwork to go in with the phone, all information is on the barcode and QR code supplied for you to stick to the outside of the packet.
• Only having a barcode on the outside makes me nervous of damage, although I didn’t this time, it may be a good idea to use some clear cellotape over the label to help it from any water damage.
• It will take roughly two weeks and you should receive a confirmation email letting you know Samsung have received your parcel and as long as your old phone was in good condition any future payments for your old phone will be cancelled. As you can see in the pic below, for me they wrote off the £677 i still had left to pay, which meant the old S20 cost me a total of £401.

Update 2022:

• Now for 2022 you have two postage options, Free 48 hour or 1 day Special Delivery costing you £7.99. However they only supply one sticky label for the 48 hour tracking and no label with the address for the special delivery so you’ll have to hand right or ask the post office to print a label for you.
• This year 2022 my return didn’t quite go to plan and had me worried for a bit. I sent it back and I risked the free 48 hour, I was starting to regret not paying for special delivery after I had heard nothing 7 days after Royal Mail said they had delivered it. I emailed Samsung asking and they said to allow at least 10 days, in the mean time the next payment for the old phone went out. It wasn’t until the 14th day I finally received an email to say they had my phone and would right off the old debt. It took them a further 4 more days to then refund the extra payment that went out.