Verizon actually did my a solid for once. We have 3 phones and 3 iPads on our family plan. None of the phones had an upgrade available (refer to my OP), but two of the iPads had upgrades. Even though you can't upgrade an iPad to a phone, verizon took our least used iPad and deactivated the number (making it wifi only until I get my new phone), put that number on an old phone we had and upgraded it to the iphone6 space gray 128.
I'll be getting it on the 19th and I got the $10 insurance to make sure nothing like what happened in my OP happens again. Once I get the phone, I can activate it on my number and transfer the number back to the iPad.
