Pay-as-you-go mobile phone plan? (merged)

[kuroiinu]

I would like to get a cell phone for my Mom who rarely if ever needs to use it, This would be for emergencies only, in case she needs to call someone or I need to reach her.

I've been looking at a few companies like Metro PCS and Virgin Mobile that offer pay-as-you-go plans, where you pay a certain amount upfront and top it off as you draw down on the balance, but without an activation fee or long-term contract. The per-minute charge is high (18 to 25 cents a minute) but in this case that doesn't bother me. The problem is that they require you to add a minimum amount ($20) into the account every so often (90 days) to keep the phone active, so that works out like a monthly plan - you use it or you lose it.

Does anyone know of a plan that has no minimum requirement whatsoever, so what you put in stays there forever until you use it up? (I wouldn't mind a one-year expiration date, but 90 days is a bit short)

Thanks in advance.

[shoppingbear]

Tracfone used to have a plan where you could buy one card that had 400 minutes and lasted a year. If you ran out before the year was out, you could add more minutes, but still keep the year expiration.

Edited to add website: http://tracfone.com/index.jsp, looks like it's $100 for the one year card. :)

[X]

You can do Virgin Mobile for $15 per quarter, or $60 a year. The minutes roll over and the quarterly billing can be made automatic.

That's the lowest price I've found. I don't think there's a plan that doesn't make you keep buying time periodically.

[kaze0]

80$ a year or 60$ a year, if its for "emergencies" only the extra $20 if worth it if you get better coverage.

[milwaukee_mike]

T-Mobile will sell you 1000 minutes for $100 which last a year, but in my experience they've always rolled over all unused minutes as long as I add within the expiration date. I switched for a pay as you go plan to a pre-paid phone three years ago and since time have maybe spent $400 on minutes. My current balance is $130. I have a hard time using more than $50 worth of minutes in a years time.

My coverage is decent in urban areas, but needs inprovement when I venture into the rural areas of Wisconsin.

[Ephemeral_Life]

I found that the quality of the T-Mobile to Go service is both much cheaper (10 cents/minute versus 18 cents a minute if you buy $100 worth of airtime; less when cards go on sale) and of much better quality (better phones, better reception, limited analog roaming capability) than Virgin Mobile.

[GoVegan]

I use Virgin Mobile. It works really well for me, and I rarely top up more frequently than once every 90 days. So far it's cost me $75-80 per year. If the minutes didn't carry over, that would bother me, but they do. As long as your mother isn't chatting on the phone for hours a day or sending text messages constantly, I think it would be a good deal and you could always have it set up to automatically bill you.

[kuroiinu]

Thanks everyone. I will go check out a few stores today.

kaze0, which company are you referring to?

[Autumn]

If you ended up going with Virgin Mobile, check the weekly Target ads. They often sell the $20 top-up cards for only $15. The minutes roll over. My husband and I both have phones through Virgin and have tons of available time because we really only use them for emergencies or quick calls.

[asabase]

I have T-mobile and do the 1000 minutes/$100 cards. You get free internet with it (really T-zones).

I've noticed sprint pre-paid cards are much cheaper per minute and am thinking of switching.

[MGR]

I have a probably dumb question:
Is a "Pay-as-you-go mobile phone plan" the same thing as a Pre-paid phone.

[X]

If you ended up going with Virgin Mobile, check the weekly Target ads. They often sell the $20 top-up cards for only $15. The minutes roll over. My husband and I both have phones through Virgin and have tons of available time because we really only use them for emergencies or quick calls.You can set up your account to bill you automatically every 90 days (or when you run out of time, whichever comes first) for $15. So you don't need to watch for sales.

[TomOpus]

You can set up your account to bill you automatically every 90 days (or when you run out of time, whichever comes first) for $15. So you don't need to watch for sales.This is what I do. I don't use my phone much so $5 a month is a great deal for someone like me.

[clappj]

I have a probably dumb question:
Is a "Pay-as-you-go mobile phone plan" the same thing as a Pre-paid phone.

Edited to remove dumb response. :)

[kuroiinu]

"Pre-paid" means just that. You pay in advance instead of receiving and paying a bill each month. The advantage is that there is no long-term contract. Your service stops when you stop adding to the balance.

"Pay-as-you-go" means that instead of getting charged a fixed amount for a fixed number of minutes every month, you get charged only for the minutes that you use (subject to a minimum amount that you have to add every so often to the balance to keep the account active).

For practical purposes the services are somewhat similar, but companies like Virgin Mobile offer both pre-paid pay-as-you-go and pre-paid monthly plans.

Looks like I'll be going with Virgin Mobile. AT&T, Verizon and Sprint have higher-minute plans but they start at a higher minimum than I was looking for. I didn't like Metro PCS at all. The sales people at the store kept talking me into more expensive plans with text messaging and video :) when I told them I wasn't interested, and I left not knowing what they really had. If coverage for Virgin Mobile checks out OK in the area, I'll probably pick them (I was told they use the Sprint network).

[MGR]

Thanks very much for the info. One more question.

I intend to switch to one of these types of plans and phones (after my current cell contract is up, so I won't get hit with the early termination).

Can you keep the current phone number when you do this? Switching from "regular" cell service to a pre-paid?
Thanks

[kuroiinu]

In general, yes. From ther Virgin Mobile web site: http://www.virginmobileusa.com/help/helpDetails.do?tier=account&categoryId=1&topicId=1


Q. Can I keep my existing number?

A. Of course. To program your current Virgin Mobile number into your new phone, just give us a call at 1-888-322-1122 and ask for a live advisor.

There may be a few exceptions if you are currently using a minor provider. I think they were allowed some time to make their numbers portable. I don't know if or when that deadline came up.

[kuroiinu]

Edited to remove dumb response. :)

I didn't notice that you edited your answer, but it wasn't really a dumb response :). Most people who choose these pre-paid plans also use "pay-as-you-go" so these two things usually go together.

If you'd rather pay a fixed monthly amount, the usual big providers tend to have lower per-minute rates. And, unless you have bad credit, it doesn't make sense to pre-pay.

[WOWZY]

I have noticed that there's a big difference in the price of prepaid minutes between Tracfone and Net10.

Can anyone tell me why tracfone minutes are so much more expensive than Net10?

Both have the same Moto w370 phone available.

[4KRG]

There is no difference in service. At the risk of being called a racist :) I am going to tell you that net10 is geared towards the hispanic market. Based in Miami and all their tech support people are ESL and Spanish as primary

oh and BTW - their tech support sucks ass.

Expect to be down for a week or more if you have any problem. Transfering a phone number can take 2 - 3 weeks.

I would recommend anyone else, UNLESS, cost is your #1 objective and you don't really care if the phone is dead for a week if you ever have an issue.

Since I hardly ever use my personal phone (mostly use the work phone) I went net10. I still want to maintain a personal phone number for light use and times when I go on vacation and don't want to even take the work phone :)

I was with the old ATT TDMA service that is now shut down, and had free service for 14 months from some deal I found. I switched to net10, when the TDMA shut down, based on them having a 1 year card for $150 (which they no longer sell). $12.50/month with the 1500 minutes, was the best deal going. I use about 60 minutes a month on the personal phone at most.

I had a nightmare getting the service going (number transfer), then about 3 months later my phone broke and it took 10 business days to get that corrected and multiple phone calls to their tech support (each call is an hour due to their stupids scripts)

The phone service itself has been fine, the support is the only thing wrong.

[sracer]

Depending upon how service is in your are, you may want to give T-Mobile's prepaid a look. They've got $0.10 a minute (if you buy their $100 1000-minute card) and the phone is activated for an entire year. That means you don't have to periodically "top up"... as long as you have minutes on the phone, then you are good for an entire year.

Most companies require periodic "top ups" even if you still have minutes left on your account.

Oh, and because it is GSM SIM-card based, you can pretty much use any unlocked GSM phone with it. I used an Audiovox SMT-5600 Windows Mobile Smartphone on a T-Mobile prepaid account for 10 months.... it was great!

[big whoppa]

I've been using T-Mobile's prepaid for 10cents a min. After using Tracfone and Virgin, it's the best.

[sracer]

I've been using T-Mobile's prepaid for 10cents a min. After using Tracfone and Virgin, it's the best.
I also forgot that their free unlimited use T-Zones is available with prepaid too... nice for checking news/sports/weather while standing in a checkout line.

Note: this is NOT the same as T-Mobile's TMobileWeb, T-Zones $5.99/mo. plan, Total Internet, or any of T-Mobile's "data plans". (TMobile has great data plans available, but the most confusing naming scheme)

[4KRG]

Look at how much they all cost

http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm

[WOWZY]

My daughter has a Tracfone Moto w370 phone that she's not using. I used it last night on the remaining minutes that she still had. The phone works better than my wifes net10 phone.

I pulled the batteries out of both phones and they are using the same exact model sim card but with different serial numbers. Is there anyway that net10 can add the Tracfone to their service?

[4KRG]

Net10 is Tracfone, same company

The only reason the phones would not interchange is company policy and you would have to speak with them directly on that issue.

[C_Fletch]

Any new deasl out there? They all seem confusing to me. YOu can use them at certain times but when you use them you have to pay a daily fee of $1.00. That seems to be the GO phones.

Any other ideas? I am seriously looking at one.

[beavismom]

Not a new deal, but Target occasionally runs the T-mobile $100 card for around $90. This is how we fund our kids emergency cell phone. Also, if you have an old T-mobile phone laying around or can get one cheap, you can pay $10 for an activation kit at a T-mobile store and it will include $10 worth of minutes.

[clappj]

Not a new deal, but Target occasionally runs the T-mobile $100 card for around $90. This is how we fund our kids emergency cell phone. Also, if you have an old T-mobile phone laying around or can get one cheap, you can pay $10 for an activation kit at a T-mobile store and it will include $10 worth of minutes.

Thanks for the info!

[felcher]

the best service is alltel because it lets you load 10.00 minimum when the others are 20-30$ plus. it negates .75 a day from the 10.00 and you have free calling nights and weekends for the .75 a day plus unlimited text messaging 24-7. that means you can take a picture with the awesome 20.00 phone worth 150.00 no contract and you can send it via email anywhere in the usual service areas.ya. unlimited emailing also. when you hit zero in the balance they shut off your service and you don't go minus so you can use it travelling or whatever and let it run out. simple as that. oh ya, calls are .10 a minute in peak time which is't bad.

[kenbuzz]

Do TracPhone and Virgin Mobile and the others work with every network (Verizon, AT&T/Cingular, Nextel) or only with certain ones? I might be interested in switching to a PAYG plan as well - I'm paying ~$70/mo (including taxes and nuisance fees) for two lines on the least expensive Cingluar plan (no data, no texting, just phone calls) and am pretty sure we can do better.

[Nick Danger]

I bought a TracFone card on Ebay. There are tons of them over there.

[Brett]

Do TracPhone and Virgin Mobile and the others work with every network (Verizon, AT&T/Cingular, Nextel) or only with certain ones? I might be interested in switching to a PAYG plan as well - I'm paying ~$70/mo (including taxes and nuisance fees) for two lines on the least expensive Cingluar plan (no data, no texting, just phone calls) and am pretty sure we can do better.

I know that Virgin uses the Sprint network, that's why I haven't tried it yet I suspect I'll get much worse coverage than my current AT&T. Not sure about tracphone.

[bloopbleep]

the key here is make sure its only for emergencies, I gave one to my mother and she ended up talking to all her friends and now is constanly running out of minutes and buying more cards. :)

[felcher]

hey dude, i think i know your mother..........

[Original Desmond]

Not long now till my visit to the US :)

I will be visiting New York first, then Vegas, then maybe some other places

Only a few weeks

I want to get a prepaid mobile i can use all over the US. Any recommendations ?

and where is the best place to buy them ?

[BuddhaWake]

tracfone seems to be very popular

[4KRG]

Hey Des, Tracfone will do what you want

Here is the coverage

http://www.tracfone.com/cellular_coverage.jsp?nextPage=cellular_coverage.jsp&task=cellcov

Are you looking to buy it mail order before you arrive or in a retail store when you get here?

There is also a less expensive per minute plan by tracfone, but it is sold through a company called net10.com You can buy these in any WalMart store in the US, pretty quick and easy.

[Original Desmond]

Cool thanks, gotta check out Walmart :)

[Manos]

Tracfone is a better choice if you're going to use the phone only occasionally. I just joined Net10. Their sweet spot is 150 minutes a month. If you spend less, you're better off with Tracfone. (They're the same company.) Spend more, and Net10 is a better value. Both use the AT&T network in most, but not all, places. My coverage has been outstanding so far. You can buy time online and on your phone.

[postalpez]

target has tmoble $100 card for $88 And you get a Free Phone with it. (nokia 2610 norm $30)

[Heat]

Tracfone is a better choice if you're going to use the phone only occasionally. I just joined Net10. Their sweet spot is 150 minutes a month...
I've been looking at Tracfone and Net10 (same company as you noted) - I'd have to say that Net10 is much better for everybody unless they really use the phone for less than 400 minutes per yerar.

Both have phones for $20 to $30. With Tracfone you pay $100 for 400 minutes and one year of service, with Net10 you pay $150 for 1,500 minutes and one year of service.

With both you can buy smaller cards of course with shorter terms of service, and you can of course add minutes at any time.

[C_Fletch]

I was thinking of boost. Do they have the best price. It lists it as .10 minutes night and weekends. Then .20 for any other time. Are there any other hidden fees?

What is Tracfone per minute of use?

[Heat]

...What is Tracfone per minute of use?

20 to 25 cents, or 10 cents. Tracfones’ pricing plans get really complicated but basically you are paying 20 or 25 cents per minute. The advantage of Tracfone is that the phone itself is cheap (under $20) and you can get a years worth of service by buying a $100 card which gives you 450 or 500 minutes. Adding minutes will cost you 20 or 25 cents per minute.

But if you think you might be on the phone for more than 450 minutes in a year, go with Net10 which is owned by Tracfone. With Net10 the phones cost a little more ($30 to $50) but you get 300 free minutes / 60 days of service when you activate the phone. You can then get a years worth of service by buying a $150 card which will give you 1,500 minutes. Adding minutes on top of that will cost 10 cents per minute.

Taking a look at Tracfone’s website, I see that they now have a $50 phone that gives you double minutes per life, thus if you buy that you could get a years worth of service and close to 1,000 minutes for $100. But you pay $50 up front. Really, it depends on how much you think that you will talk in a year:

500 minutes or less, definitely Tracfone.
1,000 minutes or less, still Tracfone.
More than 1,500 minutes, definitely Net10.

Check out their websites, you'll see what I'm talking about.

Edit: I think that the yearly Net10 card is new ($150 for one year of service and 1,500 minutes), the first time I saw it was last night at my local Meijer store, I don't see it on the Net10 website. But it is out there.

[psxfan2]

I need a phone without monthly fees and all other hidden charges, no gimmicks (camera, music player etc.) on the phone itself as well.
Just a basic phone.

[4KRG]

www.net10.com

[dleedlee]

I'm still with Virgin Mobile (http://www.virginmobileusa.com/) (Sprint). What's best for you might depend on how frequently you plan on using it.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=426735&highlight=virgin

[kenbuzz]

^bump

Are there any T-mobile monthly customers here who might be able to help?

We've got a T-mobile monthly plan for our two phones (wife & I), and even on their lowest tier of service AND with the discount I get through my company it's still costing $60/mo for nearly twice as many minutes as we'd ever use. We average 250-350 minutes per month, no data services, no texting... just phone calls. In a heavy-use month (350 mins), our cost is 17 cents per minute, and it only gets higher if we don't use the phones as much.

I'm looking at switching to their prepaid plan. For $100 we'd get 1150 minutes (1000 + 15%) or less than 9 cpm, which is half our current cost. Cost-wise, it's a no-brainer.

What I don't know is whether I can roam for free on a prepaid plan the same way I can with my monthly plan. For example, my workplace has NO T-mobile coverage, but there's a nice fat AT&T tower there, so I'm okay because my plan includes unlimited roaming. I don't know if that's the same if I switch to prepaid.

Also, is there any reason why we couldn't continue to use our existing phones?

[big whoppa]

There are no roaming charges on T-mobile's Prepaid. You probably can use your existing phones. T-mobile also has a sale on a blue-tooth prepaid phone (Motorola) for $30 that comes with $30 bonus talk time with activation if you're interested.

[kenbuzz]

There are no roaming charges on T-mobile's Prepaid. You probably can use your existing phones. T-mobile also has a sale on a blue-tooth prepaid phone (Motorola) for $30 that comes with $30 bonus talk time with activation if you're interested.Thanks for the gouge on roaming/phones. Also, thanks on the Moto heads-up... I'm just doing the preparatory leg work now, our contract isn't up for another 6 weeks. If the dealio is still active come mid-January, I'll have to look into it. Our current phones are bluetoothable, and we really like what we've got, but if the Moto phones are effectively free, and if the $30 can be applied to a prepaid account attached to our existing phones, we might be able to eBay the Motos. :)

[Rex Fenestrarum]

Many Tracfone phones come with "Double Minutes For Life". As soon as you activate the phone, you'll get double minutes on any airtime cards for the life of the phone. So a $20 60 minute card becomes 120 minutes.

There are also Tracfone threads at FatWallet (and, I think, Slickdeals) where coupon codes get posted, so you can get bonus minutes when you activate a card. The bonus minutes are usually on a sliding scale (the more minutes you buy, the more bonus minutes you get), but there's almost always a code that can get you 30 or 60 minutes free with a 60 minute card. So you're looking at $20 for a 60 minute card that becomes 120 minutes with DMFL and at least 30 bonus minutes.

One thing I like about Tracfone is that they give you x minutes or 90 days with every airtime card. Other carriers make you "top up" every 30 days, which sucks, because I'm often having cash flow problems with my small business. $30 for a monthly top-up card kind of defeats the whole purpose of "prepaid" if you ask me.

I just wish Tracfone would get some better phones and maybe some kind of *decent* wireless Internet service. Although most Tracfone\Net10 phones come with a web browser, you can only surf their "intranet" site, and it's slow as Christmas. I occasionally want\need an odd bit of information (like a sports score), and if Tracfone's wireless Internet didn't suck so badly, I'd use it more.

[Rex Fenestrarum]

Also, Tracfone\Net10 buys airtime from AT&T in most areas, so if AT&T has good service in your area, you won't roam. I've been all over the southeast, and my Moto w370 has never once roamed.

[kenbuzz]

^ bump

Just made the jump from post-paid to prepaid a few minutes ago. It'll take 24 hours or so for the phones to change over. Over our last 3 months of postpaid service, we used an average of 250 minutes per month, combined, for $60. Worked out to $0.24/minute. The new prepaid plans will cost less than a dime a minute (1150 mins for $100).

And I ordered a replacement Samsung T339 for my wife, since her original phone had been dunked one too many times in puddles around campus. Cost was $30 + tax, free shipping, and includes a $25 service credit. We'll just swap SIMs once that arrives and she'll be set.
I also forgot that their free unlimited use T-Zones is available with prepaid too... nice for checking news/sports/weather while standing in a checkout line.

ote: this is NOT the same as T-Mobile's TMobileWeb, T-Zones $5.99/mo. plan, Total Internet, or any of T-Mobile's "data plans". (TMobile has great data plans available, but the most confusing naming scheme)Thanks, looking forward to standing in line now. :)

[kenbuzz]

PS - Has anyone ever ordered a card via eBay? I can clearly pick up a $100 card from a local retailer (and pay 7% tax), or "get" one over the phone from T-mobile (again, with 7% tax)... either way is $107. I can get the same card for $92.25 off eBay *if* I can trust that the deal is reliable. ~$15 less per card is a big deal if I'm looking to buy 3-5 of them every year.

[kenbuzz]

Gosh, it sure looks like I'm taking over this thread! :)

I took the plunge and went the 2nd source route. I bought two $100 / 1000 minute cards from CallingMart.com. Their price was $93.00 each, and I used coupon code ca3p-1207 to get 3% off, making the final price $90.16 each.

$90.16 instead of $107.00 (face + tax) works for me, and it works out to 7.8 cpm after figuring in the 150 minute bonus for "Gold" status from t-mobile for applying 1000 minutes' worth of refills to my account, and they don't expire for 12 months, so no need to mess with expiring minutes for a while. I'll use my minutes every 4-5 months or so, my wife will probably go a whole year on hers.

I received both prepaid card #s via email within 2 minutes of the PayPal confirmation email. :up:

[Spicollidriver1]

I signed up for the new boost unlimited deal and am pretty satisfied so far. I also like that they are Iden phones so that I can use the push to talk with some of my friends for $50 bucks a month for unlimited everything I can't complain too much . I just wish they had more phones to choose from

[TheKing]

The key to getting a good deal with Tracfone is to make sure the phone you get from them has double minutes already included with it.

Obviously, that slashes the per minute price in half on all cards. For that $100 card with a year of service, now you'd get 800 minutes. Plus Tracfone always has promo codes floating around that get you even more bonus minutes. I think I saw one that gives you 300 bonus minutes with that card. If you can get that, the cost per minute drops below 10 cents.

Also, you can get a phone with that card for free from their website, one with double minutes. So for $100, you can get a phone, a year of service, and 1100 minutes.

[kenbuzz]

Minor correction to my previous posts. The T-mobile "Gold Rewards" 15% bonus is already factored in to the price of the $100 / 1000 minute cards, since buying/applying one of those cards automatically enrolls the owner in Gold status. This (of course) works out to $0.10 / minute, not factoring in sales tax for an OTC/OTA purchase.

OTC/OTA refill values (including 7% sales tax) are:
$10 / 30 minute face = $10.70 for 35 mins (115%) = 30.6 cpm
$25 / 130 face value = $26.75 for 150 mins (115%) = 17.8 cpm
$50 / 400 face value = $53.50 for 460 mins (115%) = 11.6 cpm
$100 / 1000 face value = $107.00 for 1000 mins = 10.7 cpm

3rd Party refill values (including discounted price and new 5% coupon, no tax) are:
$10 / 30 minute face value = $9.30 - 5% = $8.83 for 35 mins (115%) = 25.2 cpm
$25 / 130 face value = $23.25 - 5% = $22.08 for 150 mins (115%) = 14.7 cpm
$50 / 400 face value = $46.50 - 5% = $44.18 for 460 mins (115%) = 9.6 cpm
$100 / 1000 face value = $93.00 - 5% = $88.35 for 1000 mins = 8.8 cpm

Updated to reflect new CallingMart coupon code... see next post

[kenbuzz]

CallingMart has a new Valentines Coupon: hpyVday09

5% off all denominations for these wireless refill cards: T-Mobile, AT&T / Cingular, Page Plus, Net10 and Tracfone refills. T-Mobile and Cingular $100, only $88.35. Page Plus $80 only $73.72. Valid until Feb 20, 2009.

[Heat]

PS - Has anyone ever ordered a card via eBay? ...
I wouldn't, not worth the risk.

Do you have a Meijer near you? Once every month or two they'll have store coupons, $15 off of $100 is one of them. Use that for your Tracfone card (which is what I did).

Also, www.howardforums.com has a good Tracfone specific forum if you are interested. Tracfone is what I use, I spend between 6 and 7 cents per minute with no contract. In real life usage, I use about 100 minutes / month, it works out great for me.

[kenbuzz]

I wouldn't, not worth the risk.

Do you have a Meijer near you? Once every month or two they'll have store coupons, $15 off of $100 is one of them. Use that for your Tracfone card (which is what I did).

Also, www.howardforums.com has a good Tracfone specific forum if you are interested. Tracfone is what I use, I spend between 6 and 7 cents per minute with no contract. In real life usage, I use about 100 minutes / month, it works out great for me.
I found CallingMart as an advertiser on eBay, whose "Buy It Now" link took you to their website. I researched them and they turned out to be legit, and they take PayPal (I like having that buffer between a new merchant and my Visa #). With their 7% discount, the 3% off coupon I found at RetailMeNot.com, and the lack of sales tax, I was happy with the dealio. As I mentioned, I got my card code #s via email within 2 minutes, and both phones were able to be loaded via the t-mobile website minutes after that. No fuss, no muss.

No Meijer nearby. $15 off $100 is nice, but I'm guessing the discount is taken off the bottom of the receipt, after you've already paid tax on the original $100. For me, that would mean a $100 card would be $92 out of pocket... a couple of bucks more than the $90.xx I paid. But for the security of getting a physical card over an emailed code #, I can understand how people might be more comfortable with that.

I work with some TracFone customers... you're the first person to have nice things to say about them. I'm sure there are others, but you're the first. :wave:

I've been on Howard Forums... nice site and a recommended resource for other folks.

[Pookymeister]

I was about to pull the trigger on T-mobile, but the $25 prepaid card deal disappeared on me(shopping night before, made decision to go with them morning after).
Hoping it comes back next week.