Prepaid cells—anyone use them?

[coastgirl]

We have our cell service from Rogers which doesn’t have a good plan available that would cover Fl. (We could get something for $40 pp, so for both phones that’s $80! Though last time we spent that in fees/roaming charges for two or three short calls…)

So. Prepaid cell. Hear about them all the time when the bad guys use them on Law and Order . Anyone use them? How much, where available?

Thanks for any help or experience you can provide…

 

[great white north]

I have a phone for daughter, mother in-law and one for myself through Virgin. You can track your minutes and top up on-line. $25.00 good for 90 days, no 911 fee or system access monthly fee. It's .25 for first 5 min. p/day and .15 after that. Only down side is I don't believe they are yet set up for coverage in the US. If you don't use the phone much it's alot cheaper than monthly packages and you are not locked into any 2 or 3 yr agreements. I see bell is also now offering prepaid. Good Luck!

 

[mtry]

hi, this is my very 1st post here. I use virgin and it is not for use in the US. I waited until I got to Florida to find that out. In an emerg I think you can use the phone... a message comes on and says thankyou for using roaming something or other... the charge will be $5.99 a minute +long distance fees. I didn't use mine at all.. Even in buffalo close to where we live.. just over the niagara river it did the same thing.. HTH.

 

[F4disneyfan]

You can go to Walgreens or Wal Mart in Florida and buy the Virgin phones and Trac phones and Verizon and all offer pre paid service no contracts etc for about 15.00-35.00 for the phone depending on what you get and how many minutes are offered with it.

 

[Nagle]

My wife and son are currently in Florida and brought my son's pay as you go cell phone along. It is a Rogers phone and we had quite a lot of accumulated talk time on it. Rogers recently announced that their pau as you go phones would now work in the U.S.A.

They do. Unfortunately the cost is way more than expected. 2 calls to let me know flights were going as scheduled and 2 longer (about 10 minutes) came to about $70 Canadian!!!!!!!!!!!!!! with roaming charges etc.

From now on, the cell is for emergencies and the calling card is the way to go.

John

 

[canron]

we picked up a trac phone at walgreens for $19.00 ..it works great..its cheaper than phoning home from a pay phone plus the kids can call us anytime at any park..or we can call them..its long dist.but its cheaper.to call to canada that way i live in kitchener ont.get a $10.00 card and its good for 90 days.

 

[madge62]

We arrived on the 23rd and I went to Wal-Mart and bought a T-Mobile phone for $29 which included $10 in minutes (about 30 minutes) and I purchased a $25 card as well. This should do me for the 13 days we're staying here and is much cheaper than me using Rogers which I did in the summer.

 

[NikP]

Could I just buy a prepaid cell phone at Walmart in Buffalo, before our flight that would work in Florida? (I am sorry I don't understand the service areas) I think this would be easier for us, since we will not have a car in Florida.

 

[i*heart*villains]

We have 2 telus pre paid phones. I'm not sure about calling but if you text each other there are no roaming charges and each text is 15 cents. It would work to keep in touch with each other in the parks. You don't get charged for roaming on regular cell phone for texting either, just for calls.

 

[canron]

we used the 14209 zip to register ours (trac phone)that way its cheaper to use on our weekend getaways for us..but just make sure you top it up in the usa..the phone has to be on on the usa to upgrade the time..it wonnt work in canada..only the u s.we have had ours on 3 trips allready and no trouble ..you cannt get time on line ..either..unless your in the usa.

 

[cslittle999]

The Tracfone sounds like a good deal. I looked at their web site but I couldn't figure out how much airtime you would have to buy to keep the phone active for a year. Do you know? What happens if the service expires? Can you just buy some more airtime?

 

[canron]

we live near the buffalo boareder so we go shopping every couple of months so we just uograde the time when we go shopping....as a matter of fact im going tuesday this week..im still on holidays..

 

[Cnd_Jen]

Hiya -

When I lived in Florida I used a US virgin pay-as-you-go. I bought it online, and it cost $40 but came with $40 of credit! Then I got a couple of extra $$ as a bonus for registering online or something. That was only a special, but they have good, random specials on quite frequently. Calling uses up a lot of credit, but you can buy a monthly package that would suite you depending on how frequently you want to call or text. You can buy text bundles as well, I always got 200txts for $5.00. And those are just month-by-month, you need get it for only one month if you wish!

Calling internationally would be kind of pricey though.

If you do buy a phone online from Virgin USA, I have NO idea if they would ship it to a Canadian address. However, I know from experience they will ship it to a hotel in Orlando!

Cheers,
~ Jen

 

[WDW1979]

Hi,

A couple of trips back I bought a Virgin brand pay-as-you-go phone at Best Buy near the Florida Mall in Orlando for about $45, plus a top up card. When I called to start the service, I had to use a zip code from the Orlando area so the calls would be local. One problem was that on our next trip, the remaining minutes had expired and when I called Virgin to top it up with my credit card, they could not set it up with a credit card drawn upon a Canadian bank. The customer service rep for Virgin was nice enough to put three free minutes onto the phone just so it could get set up and to make it easier to use a new top up card if I bought one in Orlando.