Sprint announced this week the "Cut Your Bill in Half" promotion, allowing customers to trade in their AT&T or Verizon Wireless contract for half the monthly price on Sprint.

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Talking at Bank of America Conference, CFO Joe Euteneuer claimed the deal would not be a 50 percent saving, but more around the 20 percent range.

Euteneuer revealed customers would have to buy a new smartphone on Sprint, which is not covered by the promotion. Paying for the new smartphone would ramp up the price and may even make the contract more expensive.

"The whole idea is to attract people back into our stores, to get an opportunity to talk to them about the benefits of the new network, these tri-band phones, and getting them to experience something that over the past 18 months was maybe not the best experience ," according to Euteneuer.

There are several ways to purchase a smartphone on Sprint, either through the Easy Pay installment plan, leasing or buying it outright. Either way, customers looking to change providers may be paying upwards of $599 for the privilege.

Sprint will offer $350 to remove customers from their old contract, but this may not be enough to fully pay off the cost of a year or two years. It makes the promotional deal only viable for customers late into their one or two year contract.

Euteneuer was much more open to revealing Sprint's true intentions, due to the conference being mostly investors. The CFO wanted to make sure the back-like of Sprint's customers were still paying as much for the contract.

It goes in the exact opposite direction as to what Sprint's promotional offers are saying. This could tarnish Sprint's reputation even further, if customers end up paying more per month.

Sprint has not added T-Mobile to the list of available U.S. carriers for the promotion. Reports say this is due to T-Mobile's already low contract prices, something Sprint cannot compete with and still make money.

The "Cut Your Bill in Half" promotion will begin tomorrow, but we caution going all in on the new deal.

TagsSprint, phone promotion, contracts, U.S. carriers