First Land & Premium account?

Hi all, I am totally undecided as to wether or not to upgrade to premium and buy First Land, if and when it appears. I don't really want to be paying premium for something that I can't get my hands on, plus I may get a cheaper and better deal by renting.
My question is, do I have to upgrade before I try to buy First Land, or will the act of buying automatically upgrade my account. I'm sure I read somewhere that the latter is the case. Can someone confirm this?

Do NOT upgrade to premium before you notice any First Land parcels available. Just make sure the relevant payment information (ie. credit card) is added to your account information. This way, when you spot first land, you will automatically be upgraded from Free Basic to Premium at the point of buying the land. There is no need to start paying $9.95 per month until you actually right click the parcel and select 'Buy Land'.

In addition to Dillion's EXCELLENT advice;

It is a misconception that Payment Info Used = Premium.

In the past, this was part of the Profile, and was only seen as Basic or Premium. With the new data of if payment info is on hand and/or used, some of the older accounts have not wrapped thier thinking aroudn the idea of the difference. This has bled over to also giving a misconception to new accounts.

How does this pertain to this thread?

Easy. You can set up your Payment Information through LL. You can purchase L$ ahead of time to buy the land. Although First LAnd is only 512L$ you may wish to buy more close by directly after the purchase, or have land in mind to buy after the turnover of the First Land (which can be done in seconds lately).

Having done all this, will save you the time of doing it again when you want to make your purchase. LL will already have all needed information and the process should just be a series of acknowledging the correct popup boxes during the purchase.

And to echo Dillion because his advice needs to be heard by more new accounts: Do NOT go Premium UNTIL you are about to own land. If you don't see the land you want, there's no reason to be Premium.

~Jessy

P.S. If a Linden actually reads this, LL may want to think about changing the account names from "Basic and Premium" to "Basic and LandOwner". This would more accurately reflect the accutal differences.

Thanks guys, it seems that I had got it right after all.
I set up my payment info very shortly after I joined with the idea that I could buy L$ as and when needed, and land if I decided to go that way. So in theory I should be ready to go assuming I can find that very rare First Land.
I assume that using PayPal as opposed to a credit card shouldn't cause me any problems?
The main reason for these questions is that I had a chance at buying First Land yesterday night, but whenever I clicked "Buy Land" I got an error. Can't remember the exact message, but something along the lines of... "Can't access payment info database".
There were plenty of people around obviously trying to buy too, but the land wasn't selling as quickly as you'd imagine it would. So I don't think it was just happeneing to me.
Just thought I'd add that I am a member of a group that has land deeded to it. This shouldn't affect my chance of First Land should it? I didn't buy any of the land involved with the group.

I found my first land the other night - looks like Linden has been tossing out a lot first land in the middle of the night the last couple of days as a Christmas present. I thought when I bought it, I would be automatically upgraded to premium, but I got an error message instead. Luckily I was able to pull up a browser window quick and upgrade my account that way - payment info was already on file. I think the other four people standing there trying to buy the same lot were having the same problem. SO if you're upgrading from a basic account to buy first land, you might want to pull up your account window to upgrade if it doesn't go automatically.

Welcome to horror that is 117 prims! I just got mine a few days ago and only went premium the second I saw FL. Wish I could tell every newbie to do the same.

This was never the case. In the past accounts were listed on their Profiles as: Linden, Charter Member, or Resident. There was never any distinction between Basic or Premium.

Just to be nitpicky, there were five things that could appear in the account slot: "Charter Member", "Lifetime Member", "Resident", "Linden Lab Employee", and "El Presidente".

I believe "Charter Member" and "Lifetime Member" have now been condensed into "Resident", although it may sometimes be possible to still detect Lifetime Members via a script oddity..

That's a lag out error. I get it when trying to do anything with land sometimes.

The answer is no. If you attempt to purchase land before upgrading to premium, you'll get an error message. As to whether it is best to wait until the moment of purchase to upgrade, that's a judgement call, but keep in mind that First Land plots are selling in minutes, and the first to click "buy" gets it.

So now I have the bug and am chasing after the elusive First Land.
Logged on late last night (GMT), tea time SLT to find another batch of land up for grabs. I tried for roughly half an hour to TP to the locations without any success at all. I guess I shall have to get used to this if I am to stand a chance of getting on the ladder.
Do the times when First Land is released vary by much? The only time I've managed to spot any so far has been around the same time as yesterday.
Cheers once again.

The only exception I can think of to Dillion's great recommendation:

If the Lindens are making another stipend drop for Premium accounts, consideration should be taken whether to go Premium before First Land is available in order to receive the higher weekly stipend (that was my incentive to go Premium when I did, eventhough First Land was not available at the time).

I finally got my First Land!! Turns out I had my PayPal account set up wrong so that's why I had all the errors. Anyway I fixed it, and now I'm the owner of my first 512 plot )
If my experience is anything to go by, it seems that First Land has been regularly appearing (in small amounts) at around 4pm PST/SLT (midnight GMT).
Sods law though now, the Grid is down. I'm itching to get on and sort my house and land out. Oh well, suppose I'll just have to wait
Good luck to anyone else on the hunt.