Mysterious $50 credits sent to some Samsung Accounts before Wednesday's Unpacked event
Some receiving the credit wasted no time in ordering an accessory for the Galaxy S26 model they ordered later in the day.
Samsung sends mystery $50 credits to some Samsung Account holders. | Image by PhoneArena
Are you one of the lucky Samsung Account holders who received an unexpected $50 from the manufacturer on Wednesday morning? On Reddit, a subscriber with the username ultima40
revealed that he received the credit from Samsung and promptly used his gift to buy a 45W Power Delivery (PD) power adapter with a USB-C cable; the $50 credit covered the $49.99 cost of the accessory. A few other Redditors received the credit and some on the platform soon discovered that those receiving the $50 were all in the U.S.
Why some Samsung accounts in the U.S. received a $50 credit is still a mystery
Someone came to the conclusion that it was an early payment from Samsung's Reserve program that credits those who reserve a pre-order of the latest flagship series. That might have made sense since hours after the credits arrived, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S26 series and started taking pre-orders for the line which includes the base Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, and the Galaxy S26 Ultra.
However, one recipient of the $50 said that he never signed up for the Reserve program. "I didn't pre-order anything. Still using s24u [Galaxy S24 Ultra]," said another Reddit subscriber. Another strange twist is that those who were recipients of Samsung's largesse received a $50 credit, although the Samsung Reserve program was only supposed to give them $30 for reserving a pre-order.
One recipient of the $50 credit used it to buy a 45W charger. | Image by Reddit
Pricing of the Galaxy S26 series in the U.S.
This is the kind of mystery that would usually have the whole Scooby gang ripping off the masks of everyone within mask-pulling distance. Eventually, the gang would discover that the guilty party was the kindly, elderly librarian Thaddeus Wick who took control of the library's overdue books fund and paid some Samsung Account holders $50 from the fund.
Samsung raised the starting price of the Galaxy S26 by $100 to $899.99, although it did double the amount of storage in the entry-level unit to 256GB from 128GB. The Galaxy S26+ was also hiked in price by $100 to $1,099.99. While the Galaxy S26 Ultra starts at $1,299.99, the same as the Galaxy S25 Ultra, the price of the 512GB and 1TB units for the Galaxy S26 Ultra has risen slightly in some regions.
The Galaxy S26 series will be released on March 11.
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