Anybody know what the best prepaid phone deal is?

[Sinjz]

I'm looking for a cell phone/plan that will see very little use. Maybe once a week for 5-10 minutes at a time. Anybody know what's the best prepaid plan out there is for this? I'm looking for minutes that 'roll over' if I add more cash every 90 days. 90 days is minimum, cause I know I'm not gonna do it every 30 days. A year would be even better, but I doubt I'l spend $100 a year in usage on this. Will probably try to add every 85 days just so I don't miss it and have to reactivate the phone... Want to port a number over to it too. Would be great if the phone is included.

Only need it for talking. Mostly domestic calls. Not gonna text a lot. Don't need web browsing, although the option would not be bad. MP3 player with real mp3 ringtones a plus, but not required. Camera also a plus, but not required. We want cheap! Someone hook me up!

edit: okay I'm gonna revise my usage a little. It won't be a constant once a week thing. It will be used four or five days straight (one or two minutes calls), then not used for the rest of the month. Then other times it will be use twice a week for twenty minutes each then another pause....

 

[mikemundy]

I have T-Mobile "To Go".
Prepaid plans available in varying amounts.
I buy 1000 minutes for $100 and they're
good for a year.
At the end of the year. if you re-up, your unused
minutes roll over.
Been great for me for three years now.

 

[matrixshaman]

Stay away from Alltel. They just stole $50 worth of airtime I had paid for because I didn't have my phone on a couple days and missed adding more airtime at their designated time - something like you have to add some time even if you have airtime every month or every 3 months. Anyway they took it all away just 'cause I was two days over that time. Then there is the fact they couldn't get a local prefix for me so anytime wife calls my cell from home it's long distance. I tried several time to get them to give me a local prefix but they couldn't find one. I later found out from a former Alltel dealer in town what prefix I needed to ask for but the dummies at Alltel central couldn't figure that out. Add this to the rant - my phone quit working when I went out of state to an area shown to be in their 'zone' and other Alltel phones worked there but not mine. It took 5 trips to Alltel and me telling them the last trip to either make the phone work or give my money back. I spent over half a day there - they finally figured it out. :thumbsdow for Alltel. I feel about the same on Verizon. I've owned cell phones since day one - had the very first digital cell phone in Central California - literally I was the first to have one and first to activate it. I used to buy all the newest and hotest phones and often had 2 or 3 active. Now I don't use one much so I use prepaid but Alltel's the pits.

Sorry for the rant and I just now see you aren't in the states - don't know if Alltel is available where you are but if so - you can guess what I'd recommend you NOT get.

 

[paulr]

Virgin mobile, you can get the phone at rite aid for 15 dollars, then you have to add 20 dollars every 3 months. If you don't add it the phone stops working but there is a 2 month grace period for reactivation without losing any rollover minutes. Main drawback is the coverage is not very good (Sprint network), and the per-minute costs are kind of high.

 

[Trashman]

Virgin mobile, you can get the phone at rite aid for 15 dollars, then you have to add 20 dollars every 3 months. If you don't add it the phone stops working but there is a 2 month grace period for reactivation without losing any rollover minutes. Main drawback is the coverage is not very good (Sprint network), and the per-minute costs are kind of high.

I gave my mom my old Virgin mobile phone and through the customer service, I found out that you can get a $15 every three months deal if you sign up for autopay (it'll automatically be charged to your credit card). She's had it for about 20 months, now, and has only used about 20 minutes or so!

 

[allthumbs]

I ended up with Tracfone, It works for me because of my location and usage.
Recommendation, Its OK. Heres a link to prepaid reviews, you can compare all the plans and they have very good maps of the coverage areas.
http://www.prepaidreviews.com/

 

[reptiles]

I noticed MetroPCS has a flat rate, voice and texting for $40/mo. No contracts.

Might be better than a prepaid.

=Mark

 

[flashburn72]

Page plus. 30 dollars gets a phone and 86 minutes good for three months.
cards are 86m for 10 320m for 25 800m for 50 and so on all the way up to 1400 min all roll over and if you buy the big cards they are good for a year and you get bonus min. also their cs is here in the states. down side is cheap but heavy duty phones. I can get a signal three storys down in the parking garage. I would stay away from trackfone as their cs is in India and they have problems giving out correct prefix for your area

 

[sunspot]

I had Virgin @ .18m but gave it up due to no rural coverage. I now have at&t @.25m. No rollover on the prepay at&t plan

 

[Sinjz]

I gave my mom my old Virgin mobile phone and through the customer service, I found out that you can get a $15 every three months deal if you sign up for autopay (it'll automatically be charged to your credit card). She's had it for about 20 months, now, and has only used about 20 minutes or so!

You got any sort of link to that $15 for three month deal? I don't see anything about getting $5 off for using autopay. TIA.

 

[Sinjz]

How is $40 a month better than $20 for THREE month prepaid plan (or any similar plan) for a phone that gets very little use??? :thinking:

I noticed MetroPCS has a flat rate, voice and texting for $40/mo. No contracts.

Might be better than a prepaid.

=Mark

 

[Sinjz]

Any T-Mobile prepaid users out there? Opinions?

 

[Sinjz]

Page plus. 30 dollars gets a phone and 86 minutes good for three months.
cards are 86m for 10 320m for 25 800m for 50 and so on all the way up to 1400 min all roll over and if you buy the big cards they are good for a year and you get bonus min. also their cs is here in the states. down side is cheap but heavy duty phones. I can get a signal three storys down in the parking garage. I would stay away from trackfone as their cs is in India and they have problems giving out correct prefix for your area

The $10, 86 minute card is good for a year??? The phone stays active for a year at a time?

 

[Trashman]

You got any sort of link to that $15 for three month deal? I don't see anything about getting $5 off for using autopay. TIA.

Nope, no link. I had no idea it was available, until the customer service representative told me about it. She wasn't advertising it or anything, I just asked what the cheapest plan was, or said something like, "is that the cheapest I can get it for?" and she let me know about the $15, non-advertised plan. Just call 'em up and tell them about the plan I'm telling you about and if you can get it too. It's for real -- I'm the one that signed her up for it.

 

[greenLED]

We used TracPhone for close to 2 years - good experience with them.

They even have the option of adding service time when you have a bunch of minutes left and your service time is about to expire.

 

[Sinjz]

T-Mobile seems to have the cheapest plan. If I read it correctly, I think I can get away with $10 every 90 days or so, but that would ONLY give me 30 minutes for three months. Virgin on the other hand seems to have a $20 per 90 day option, that gives me 200 minutes. If the autopay discount Trashman mentioned applies to the 'Minute packs' then its $15 per 90 days for 200 minutes, which would be better for me.

Anybody understand the "20¢ / MINUTE Basic Rate" or the "10¢ / MINUTE all the time for $6.99/month" plan they have listed under "other rates"? Are there any minutes included with these?

http://www.virginmobileusa.com/rates/minute.do

 

[DaveT]

I've had Tracfone for about two years, and overall I'm pretty happy with it. Phones are in the $10-$20 range mostly, and while most cards need added every 30 (or is it 90?) days, some of their higher-value cards add something like 400 minutes and are valid for a year, and some of them combine about 400 minutes with a "double value" bonus - so you get 400 minutes valid for a year, and every time you add minutes thereafter, you get double the minutes of the face value of the card you add - for the life of your account.

That's been worthwhile for me...I usually get one or two of the high-value cards a year, and now the double minutes thing keeps working for every card I add. At the level you're talking about using the phone, you'll probably be carrying forward a balance of minutes.

You'll be happiest with Tracfone if you do most of your setup, etc., online...their phone support is based out of South or Central America, and while the phone staffers are almost unfailingly polite in my experience, I had a couple glitches getting things set up correctly. Also, I'm not sure if it's the script/protocols they're working off, but it just seems like every phone transaction is really belabored, double-checked, and LOOOOONG.

However, whenever I've had a problem, getting to a supervisor did help. Also, they've generally given me "patience bonus" minutes when the error was on their side. Just be aware that if you need to call for help, you can plan to be on the phone for quite a while.

Dave

 

[Sinjz]

My head is swirling from reading all these different prepay pacakges. But if I read it correctly, it seems that Tracphone is $100 for 400 minutes, good for 1 year. Virgin seems to be $20 for 200 minutes good for 90 days. So if I buy 5 times a year, that would come out to $100 for 1000 minutes. Am I misreading something or is the Virgin plan offering more than double the minutes for the hassle of having to renew every 90 days?

BTW, thanks for the replies so far.

 

[Sinjz]

Virgin mobile, you can get the phone at rite aid for 15 dollars, then you have to add 20 dollars every 3 months. If you don't add it the phone stops working but there is a 2 month grace period for reactivation without losing any rollover minutes. Main drawback is the coverage is not very good (Sprint network), and the per-minute costs are kind of high.

Would you happen to have a link to the two month grace period thing? I can't find it. The wording throws me a little. I thought the minutes only roll over if I re-up every 30 days. You say they will rollover even if I only do it every 90 days?

 

[kitelights]

The most important factor in your decision needs to be based around which carrier works for you where you intend to use it.

If there are no coverage / service issues where you will be using the phone, then the info that you're gathering will be useful, but if you come up with a great plan that you can't use where you want to, it's kinda useless.

Find out which carriers others use successfully where you will be using it and research plans on those carriers. Your research should also reveal which carriers don't work there, so you'll know to avoid them no matter how tempting their rate plan may be.