Festive seasons are perfect for e-commerce marketplaces and offline retailers to attract shoppers with themed sales. Diwali is just around the corner and online sellers Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm and others are leaving no stone unturned in marketing their best offers on smartphones, electronics and more.

While looking for best smartphone deals online, shoppers must have come across an eye-catching deal on Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro selling for as low as Rs 749 during Flipkart's Big Diwali Sale, which runs from November 1 to November 5.

The attractive offer on Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro is definitely a steal, provided it's as good as it sounds. But that's not the case here. Sure, buyers can avail the offer on the Redmi Note 5 Pro at its lowest price, but at a certain cost.

Let's break it down for you.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage is priced at Rs 14,999 in India. As a part of the Flipkart Big Diwali Sale, the handset is selling for Rs 2,000 cheaper at Rs 12,999. But getting it down from Rs 12,999 to Rs 749 is the trickiest part.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro as seen on its official site
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro as seen on its official siteXiaomi (Mi)

Flipkart is running a special discount on the exchange, which buyers can avail to get up to Rs 12,250 off by trading in their old smartphone. Sounds innocent right? But the catch is that the exchange value depends on the brand and model of the smartphone you are trading in.

If you are willing to upgrade from your old Redmi Note 5 to Redmi Note 5 Pro, the exchange discount is estimated at Rs 4,250. You can even trade in your old Redmi Note 5 Pro and Flipkart is still giving you Rs 6,400 off on the new piece of the same model.

To our surprise, we went through various smartphone models ranging from iPhone 7 to OnePlus 5T and the maximum value of Rs 12,250 on the exchange wasn't listed on any one of them. In fact, we wanted to see how much value an old Sony phone could fetch on Flipkart and one of the most premium smartphones by Sony, the Xperia XZ Premium, gets only Rs 1,900 off.

OnePlus 5T gets you Rs 10,500 off, iPhone 7 fetches Rs 11,000 exchange discount, Google Pixel 2 XL gets Rs 10,800 off on exchange and Samsung Galaxy S8 offers Rs 10,400 off. The only smartphone that is giving Rs 12,250 off on exchange is Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and why would anyone in their right mind trade in their fully functional Note 8 without any cracks or dent on screen or body for a Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro.

If you take away the appeal of the exchange offer, the Redmi Note 5 Pro's Diwali discount is as good as any other deal on Flipkart or anywhere else. But buyers can avail other offers like 10 percent instant discount on SBI credit cards and Axis Bank credit card.