Is a TracFone phone better than a PrePaid Calling card?

EllenFrasier

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Mar 8, 2010
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My Mom buys those prepaid calling cards at the store so she can call long distance to my Aunt who lives in a neighboring state. She says my Aunt has a cell phone so she likes it better when my Aunt calls her. I was thinking of maybe getting her a Trac Fone for Christmas so she could call my Aunt long distance, but I'm not sure if it's cheaper or the same thing as the prepaid calling card. Anybody know?:confused3
 
anything about prepaid calling cards but a triple minute tracfone is $60. Then for $100 a year I get the 400 minute card (which would triple to 1200 minutes) and there is always a coupon (just google "tracfone coupon") which will usually get you another free 250 or so.

If she needs more for $200 she can get 1500 minutes which would also triple. (ALWAYS look for a coupon.. there are many)

We've had tracfone for over 10 years and been very happy with it.

But if the aunt has a cell phone w/a plan and unlimited minutes then I would just call, hang up and say, "call me back". :thumbsup2
 
Or check with her phone provider on how much it would be to add long distance? It may not be much more :goodvibes
 
You'd have to check the per-minute cost. If you want to battle with tracfone over minutes, promocodes, and discounts, it might be a little cheaper, but honestly, unless she wants/needs a cell phone, I'd just stick with the prepaid cards.
 

We have used both and tracfone is a pain in the hiney, IMO. THEY call you with advertising voicemail messages and charge you when you open the message to see who called. YOu have to keep putting minutes on the phone every three months, even if you have tons of minutes left. Also, regardless of the "deal," it'll cost between 8 and 10 cents a minute. The only reason we have a tracfone is for the convenience of a cell phone without the cost of a full-blown contract. We keep ours in the car and use it in emergencies. I would have your mom stick with her calling cards; when someone calls her, it won't call her anything. With tracfone, if someone calls you, you still pay the per minute charge.
 
We have used both and tracfone is a pain in the hiney, IMO. THEY call you with advertising voicemail messages and charge you when you open the message to see who called. YOu have to keep putting minutes on the phone every three months, even if you have tons of minutes left. Also, regardless of the "deal," it'll cost between 8 and 10 cents a minute. The only reason we have a tracfone is for the convenience of a cell phone without the cost of a full-blown contract. We keep ours in the car and use it in emergencies. I would have your mom stick with her calling cards; when someone calls her, it won't call her anything. With tracfone, if someone calls you, you still pay the per minute charge.

would be less than 5cents a minute. I have always only put $ on mine once a year. No reason to mess with it every 3 months, although you certainly can do it that way.

Yes, they text 1-2x a month with promos. Texts use up 1/3 of a minute. What does she pay per minute with the calling card? If she goes out and about it would be a nice peace of mind for her to have a phone.
 
We love Tracfone! DH uses it for business. AFAIK, we have never gotten a phone call from them. We have gotten an occasional text, but you don't have to open it. We have the double minutes and may upgrade to triple minutes soon.

If she has a Kroger store in the area, there is another option there. My phone is a Kroger iWireless phone. I think I paid about $30 for the phone (I don't txt. or send pics or anything, just a basic phone). For every $100 I spend I get 20 mins. added to my phone balance. You do have to add time every month or 2, depending on what plan you have. I recently switched from no set monthly plan and 10 cents a min. to $5 a month and 5 cents a minute (or something like that). Anyway, w/ the monthly $5 plan, I just buy a $10 card every 2 months, and it deducts that from my account monthly. I haven't had to buy any extra minutes in a LONG time. I buy gift cards for nearly everything at Kroger, and that really adds your minutes up, because it works just like your fuel points. You do not choose between fuel points or cell phone mins. you get both.
 
My family members have 5 tracfones between us and we're all happy with them. We've got the double minutes, didn't realize they'd added a triple minutes option, will have to look into that. Yes they text you, but you know as soon as you see the number its coming from (5 digit, starts with 9) what it is and you can just delete it. Its no big deal really. We haven't had issues with time vs minutes except for occaisionally finding out somebody always has time and never has minutes - they apparently talk too much and add too many lower level cards. I've used mine everywhere from philly area to orlando to alaska with no issues. It does run 10c a minute with the double minutes but for people who don't talk a ton and don't want to have to pay a ton every month it works fine. When my mom was hospitalized recently it was great to be able to let her keep one in the hospital knowing if it got stolen or lost it was no big deal and couldn't run up a bill for us, but she could contact us whenever she needed to.
 
We have used both and tracfone is a pain in the hiney, IMO. THEY call you with advertising voicemail messages and charge you when you open the message to see who called. YOu have to keep putting minutes on the phone every three months, even if you have tons of minutes left. Also, regardless of the "deal," it'll cost between 8 and 10 cents a minute. The only reason we have a tracfone is for the convenience of a cell phone without the cost of a full-blown contract. We keep ours in the car and use it in emergencies. I would have your mom stick with her calling cards; when someone calls her, it won't call her anything. With tracfone, if someone calls you, you still pay the per minute charge.
I believe that texts from Tracfone are not charged. I can't be 100% sure because my phone has a firmware bug that if I look at the front screen at the partial text, the phone accepts the text and doesn't charge the minutes.

I don't mess around with cards at all. They have a monthly plan. I have 3 phones and pay $23.99 per month for all of them together.

Tracfones are good for someone who wants something to carry for emergencies. Also good for someone who just wants to communicate with family with text messaging. That is what my wife and I use it for, keeping in touch when we are away at work through texts. For $23.66 per month, my wife, oldest daughter, and I keep in touch as well as keeping in touch with my wife's mom and aunt and her brother. We get plenty of units for texting and use it a LOT more than I thought we would.

Previous, we only had 1 Tracfone that we would share and each take to work (different shifts) and I found we used up minutes like crazy with just occasional "stopping at the store, need anything?" and "on my way home" type calls.

Tracfones are definitely not good for chitchatting on, in my opinion. The minutes are used up really fast if you chitchat.
 
I guess I didn't express myself clearly enough- chalk it up to having just come from covering a 75 minute, middle-school study hall on a Friday afternoon!

I like having the tracfone in the van for travel emergencies, and I use it to "buzz" DD in her dorm when I come to pick her up, as I can't get into the locked building. However, I wouldn't find it a good replacement for a phone card for making calls regularly... the plans we have (DD had double minutes) would be too expensive for using the tracfone for long distance calls or even for local calls where you are going to chitchat and talk for long periods.

I also can't figure out the whole roaming thing. My phone frequently shows that I am roaming here at home, which is the town where my phone is registered (by zipcode, small town outside of Bangor, ME). Calls when roaming, of course, cost more. However, when in NYC, DC, and WDW, we weren't roaming... how does THAT work??

I really need to find out about that 3 phones for <$24 a month... how many minutes a month do you get with that?
 
You could also look into no contract per month phones. You pay a flat rate per month vs per minute.

There's also some plans that pay per day. AT&T Go phone only charges per day, if you make a call. It's $2 per day that the phone is used. So if she only calls once or twice a month for a few hours at a time, it might be worth it like that.

There's ton of options available.
 
I also can't figure out the whole roaming thing. My phone frequently shows that I am roaming here at home, which is the town where my phone is registered (by zipcode, small town outside of Bangor, ME). Calls when roaming, of course, cost more. However, when in NYC, DC, and WDW, we weren't roaming... how does THAT work??

I really need to find out about that 3 phones for <$24 a month... how many minutes a month do you get with that?
As far as I know, there is no more higher rate for roaming (use to be 2 "units" per minute.) That might be just on newer phones though and if you have an old phone, the roaming still is charged the 2 "units".

Roaming means that you are out of range of the cell provider for your particular phone. Tracfones work on 3 different carriers depending on your area and type of phone. It uses the Verizon network if you have a CDMA phone (CDMA is just the type of signal.) The GMS phones us a SIM card and work on either ATT or T-Mobile (didn't they merge?) depending on the area. If you go out of range for the particular network your phone uses, it "roams" for the other carriers and uses their towers.

As for the <$24, on the Tracfone website, you can sign up for the monthly plan. You do have to enter a payment account and get billed automatically.

They have an individual plan that I want to say is $9.99/month. You get 50 minutes each month and most phones available now are double minutes with the 2 or 3 that are triple minutes. So you would get 100 or 150 respectfully with those phones.

I did the family plan where it is $9.99/month for 100 minutes on my double minute phone and add extra phones for $5.99 each and they get 80 minutes (40 minutes plus double minutes.) The last remaining $ or so is some tax.
 
Is the problem just the cost of long distance? If so, then maybe she just needs a better plan, not a cell phone. I personally switched not to long ago to Pioneer Telephone and couldn't be happier! I only pay 2.7 cents/minute for most out of state calls (which is less than many of the pay as you go cell plans). They have had great customer service the few times I've had to deal with them, and all of the reviews I came across raved about them.
 
I thought everyone had free long distance on their home phones at this point? I remember my husband's grandfather using those phone cards to call long distance about 12 yrs ago, but I thought those were a thing of the past. My home phone is through our cable company and I'm pretty sure I can even call Canada and Mexico for free (probably other countries too). What kind of home phone plan does she have?
 
I thought everyone had free long distance on their home phones at this point? I remember my husband's grandfather using those phone cards to call long distance about 12 yrs ago, but I thought those were a thing of the past. My home phone is through our cable company and I'm pretty sure I can even call Canada and Mexico for free (probably other countries too). What kind of home phone plan does she have?

No you don't get free long distance in rural areas with no cable or have dial up internet so no phone over internet...and long distance is not cheap...

Was told recently by Tracfone that there are no more roaming charges, you might need a new phone...how old is it... you can get a Tracfone on their site now for 19.99 with a free 60 min card so it is really free I use fatwallet Tracfone forum site for codes for extra minutes for every card I buy and they have all kinds of people who will answer your questions.
 
I thought everyone had free long distance on their home phones at this point? I remember my husband's grandfather using those phone cards to call long distance about 12 yrs ago, but I thought those were a thing of the past. My home phone is through our cable company and I'm pretty sure I can even call Canada and Mexico for free (probably other countries too). What kind of home phone plan does she have?

It depends on the plan/package you have - you can often get a flat rate plan that covers whatever long distance calls you make without additional charges, but in my case - since I only make a a few long distance calls most months - that flat rate is A LOT more than than not having the flat rate plan and just being charged for individual calls. Or you can get a home/cell/internet/cable-type package that includes it for free, but again, the costs of those packages in my case are a lot higher than if I purchase what I need for those services individually from different venders.
 
While long distance/roaming is free with many cell phone plans, remember you are still paying the per-minute charge for a cell phone call. TracFone often works out to 12cents or more per minute for that charge, even with the bonus codes/double minutes/etc you can get - that's the cost you need to be comparing to a home phone plan.
 
No you don't get free long distance in rural areas with no cable or have dial up internet so no phone over internet...and long distance is not cheap...
Yup, I have just finally had included long distance added last week. I ended up upgrading to the included long distance and upped the internet from 1.5mb/s to 10.0mb/s for the same cost as what I was paying without long distance.
Whoohoo! I'm finally in the 1990's technology! :lmao:
 















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