My 15 year old dd is going on two trips this spring. I want to get her a tracphone because she's not really interested in having a cellphone full time. Can someone help me discern what would be the cheapest/best deal? I am so overwhelmed. I live in a small town, the only place we have to shop is Wal-Mart, Radio Shack, and the cell phone dealers.

Thanks in Advance,

Teresa

I've had a TracFone almost since they first came out and it has been perfect for us. I buy service by the year and last summer I replaced my old phone and for $129 online, I got a Motorola camera phone (I take pictures and have no clue how to download them), a year of service plus double minutes which instantly turned the 200 minutes with the year card into 400. I now have nearly 1100 minutes on hand which I cannot imagine using since I am not much of a phone person, but I sure have the time if I need it.

I was talking to an elderly gentleman in WalMart the other day who needed a cell phone and I noticed that you can buy a simple phone for $15 and get a few free minutes plus for about $20, if I remember correctly, you can get three or four months service. If you don't want to keep up the service, you can let it drop, lose whatever minutes you have left and if she goes away again, you can pick up the service again although you will get a different number.

I have no idea how the other pay as you go services work, but I have been very, very pleased with TracFone. When we go to the lake, my Tracfone seems to get better service than my son's expensive business supplied phone.

I've also noticed that I get far better reception on my little noikia basic model tracfone then all of my friends do with their snazzy expensive phones on other carriers. And I can even still have a few nifty ring tones (purchased individually at the tracfone website). I've got one now, I bought my hubby one, and my parents one as well. We've all got the deal where you buy the card for 1 year of service, with 400 minutes, with the "double your minutes" thing for $139. Usually their is a coupon code floating around for another 50 - 100 minutes when you buy a 1 year card or the 400 minute card, plus when you double the minutes you end up with 1000 minutes and a year of service for $140 plus the cost of the phone. And more often then not if you go to tracfone.com and look at their deals, there's some phone for free if you buy the card.

__________________
Meddle ye not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crispy, and taste good with Ketchup!

I love my Tracfone too and reception is exceptional. I updated the phone last year and have been very happy.

My year of service is up in a week and I have bought the 400 minute year service card, but I'm wondering about the "double your minutes" thing that you mentioned. Can you give me some help or point me in the right direction?

Also, any codes out there for additional minutes?

Thanks.

__________________
Thanks. ~Susan

Please email me at.... snschapin@yahoo.com

Do not value the things you have in your life,
but value who you have in your life!

I've had a Tracfone for about 8 years now and it's great. I don't use many minutes, but I've accumulated alot of minutes over the years so I'm primarily interested in extending my service vs. getting more minutes.

My service will expire next week, so I just signed up for one of Tracfone's value plans that will automatically extend my service for 30 days if my services expires. They will only bill me (well, bill my credit card on file) for $4.95 if they extend my service.

Assuming I don't buy another card for a year, I will be paying roughly $60 for a year of service. Not bad. And if I do buy minutes/time, this value plan should be a safeguard against my phone getting cut off due to expiring.

I hope this plan works out well and does what it's supposed to. (The tracfone has to be turned on for them to actually extend service on the phone. Otherwise, you have to go online to your Tracfone acct. and do it there.)

I plan to upgrade my phone within the next couple of years, so I don't want to add more minutes cause that would mean more minutes to transfer.

they have a card you can buy on their main website that in effet acts like a coupon code for the life of your phone. You enter in the code and from then on whenever you add minutes it doubles them. You can still use bonus minute coupons too! The current offer is

Double Minutes for the Life of your TracFone
365 Days of Service
800 minutes

These minutes have already been doubled for your convenience*

139.99

__________________
Meddle ye not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crispy, and taste good with Ketchup!

We bought my Mom & Dad tracphones for Christmas...which they love. Some of the best deals I saw were on the website. Also just watch advertisments...sometimes they have good deals for a basic model phone for around $15 Definitely go with the card that double minutes for life of the phone. Plus look on Ebay for the cards....usually not a great deal but I saved about $40 buyin them on Ebay for my parents phones with a year service w/ double minutes.

I have one, as do my two oldest sons. It's perfect for us. I bought mine @Sam's Club-got the phone and ended up w/ 80mins. for $20. You can get a better one online, but I needed a phone in a hurry. My oldest son got the double mins. card for Christmas-I think that was $50, and it's for life. My other son rarely uses his, so mins. last forever. I usually have to buy mins. for him to extend his service. As for me, it only costs about $20 a month-much cheaper than my cell phone plan was!

at&t gophone has pickyour plan no annual contract they have something called 1.00 per day only on the days you use your phone.thgey have the refill acrds with rollover minutes,and when you refill you get 10.00 bonus airtime when you add 25.00 or more within 7 days of activation,and pay as you go rewards you get a bonus for every 100.00 you spend.Or with tracphone they have a new offer unlimited double minutes you get 1 fee minute with every future minute you buy and add for the life of the phone you buy

__________________
i'M THE TYPE

OF GIRL WHO WILL BUST OUT

LAUGHING ABOUT SOMETHING

THAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY

Had Virgin Mobile for 4 years. Great for ocasional users.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I have another question, though... Can I add the double minutes for life after she's had the phone for a while? I don't know how much she'd use the phone and don't want to spend that kind of money if she's not going to use it enough to get the $$ back. She barely uses the home phone now. I have 11 year old twins who will eventually get the tracphone passed to them, but not anytime soon.

TIA,
Teresa

Yes you can. I bought my parents phone with the double minutes card. I had my phone for over a year before I added my double minutes card. And hubby's phone has yet to be updated with one. While I'm sure its obvious, I feel I should mention that the double minutes only starts once you add the card to your phone - any previously added minutes will not double. Its basically from that moment on.

__________________
Meddle ye not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crispy, and taste good with Ketchup!

If you don't want to keep up with the TracFone cards, check with your current cell phone carrier. Almost all of them have a 'familiy' plan where you can add an additional line for $9.99/month (around $15 with taxes) and most of the time they have 'free' phones you can choose from (most likely will have to extend your contract to get hte free phone). You share your minutes between all phone on the plan.

Yes, it's more than the TracFone, but if you're going to use more than just a few minutes, it may come out less expensive in the long run and you don't have to worry about keeping up with adding minutes, etc. It's just something to keep in mind, depending on your situation.

Sarah......mom to Jason & Devin

I suggest you check Walmart. I got a Tracfone phone for $14.88, and it included a free 'Double Minutes for Life' . Can't beat that!

Radio Shack is carrying a new low-cost pre-paid service from a company called Trumpet Mobile. The daily access fee is half of GoPhones. They have a great phone for only $19.99 and that INCLUDES $10.00 in airtime and a free debit card. Their customer service is awesome too. I highly recommend them. Also, since your dd isn't planning on using the phone all that often it's good to know that, unlike Tracfone, the airtime doesn't expire as quickly and they don't give away your phone number right away. A neat thing that Trumpet is doing is giving bonus airtime from time to time. They also have a cool family plan if you might add other phones. You can check them out at Radio Shack or online trumpetmobile.com.

HTH

oupiglet

PS I've had bad experiences with Tracfone with bad sim cards to minutes disappearing. I'm not as sold on them as I use to be.

__________________
oupiglet...addicted to free stuff!