TracFone owners - I need your help!

[EllenFrasier]

We want to get a TracFone for our son. I am looking at the website and I'm getting more confused by the second. There's one phone on there that looks pretty good - it's $29.99 and includes double minutes for life free. That sounds good. Now about the minutes. It says, for instance, that I can buy 60 minutes with 90 days of service. Does that mean that if I have double minutes for life that I will really get 120 minutes and what does 90 days of service mean? Does that mean he will only have 90 days to use the minutes?
Thanks in advance to anyone with TracFone experience!

 

[aimlyles]

You can sometimes get the tracfones with double the minutes at Walgreens for $14.99, I know they just had them on sale, not sure if they still are or not. I think Walmart sells them too for about $20

If you buy 60 minutes (online or a card in a store) when you load it on the phone it will double up to 120 minutes. You have 90 days to use it OR load more minutes. If you do not add minutes before the "due date" then your phone will be deactivated.

If you have 20 minutes on your phone and you have to add more because the 90 days is up you don't lose the minutes it adds onto them. So if you added another sixty minute card you would have a totally of 140 (60 doubled to 120 + the 20 you had before the due date) and you'd get another 90 days to use those minutes.

Hope that makes sense!

 

[EllenFrasier]

Thank you!!!

 

[zoemurr]

Purchase the phone you want. They are often cheaper elsewhere. Make sure you get one with double minutes.

The best and easiest deal is the one year card. I think it has 450 minutes. NEVER buy airtime without a coupon. They are always readily available. (just google "tracfone coupons") you can often get up to another 250mins for free.

So, for your $100 card you get one year of service and over 1000minutes. Then if you buy another card before the one year is up your minutes roll over. Or, if he needs more minutes before the time is over you can purchase it then.

Just be warned.. if it is for emergencies it is a great service. I have had mine for over 10 years. If you child wants to go crazy w/texting (as mine has) it will cost you $$. It is 3 texts per minutes.

Good luck!

 

[scootch]

Just be warned.. if it is for emergencies it is a great service. I have had mine for over 10 years. If you child wants to go crazy w/texting (as mine has) it will cost you $$. It is 3 texts per minutes.

Good luck!

ours have worked out well for our kids. They do want to text(not a ton, but some) and both have ipod touches. Ipod Touch has a FREE text apt. You have to be in an area of wifi, but we have wifi in our house, so they do all their texting from their ipod touches for free.

 

[zoemurr]

ours have worked out well for our kids. They do want to text(not a ton, but some) and both have ipod touches. Ipod Touch has a FREE text apt. You have to be in an area of wifi, but we have wifi in our house, so they do all their texting from their ipod touches for free.

what we ended up doing too..

 

[hsmamato2]

to the one year double minutes card... I always do that! you need to go over in detail with your kid exactly how many minutes per month they can use on this plan...i.e. 1000 minutes divided by 12 months = this many minutes per month.... it's not for normal teen use(talking/texting nonstop) it's for average use....emergency etc.

 

[Disneyliscious]

Not sure how much the airtime cards are for Trac Phone, but look into Straight Talk too. They have some pretty awesome plans.

 

[pk1959]

Just be warned.. if it is for emergencies it is a great service. I have had mine for over 10 years. If you child wants to go crazy w/texting (as mine has) it will cost you $$. It is 3 texts per minutes.

Good luck!

Also something to consider. It is 3 texts per minute, but it also costs a third of a minute to READ a text...not just send one. So if you are sending back and forth like crazy like I do it adds up much faster than what it sounds like it would!

 

[ceecee]

Also something to consider. It is 3 texts per minute, but it also costs a third of a minute to READ a text...not just send one. So if you are sending back and forth like crazy like I do it adds up much faster than what it sounds like it would!

True! My DD borrowed my Tracfone at Disney and had it for a week, she used 400 minutes!!! We switched her over to the Virgin $25 a month with unlimited texts. Really regretting it...who needs to text that much???? They text "hey whz up" 20 times a day. One question can take 6 texts, call for pity sake!!!

 

[bjscheel]

I got DD12 the LG 290C double minutes phone. Then I got her the annual card with 1500 minutes, making 3000 minutes. $200/year makes about $16/month which works for us. I like the annual, you don't have to mess with re-upping so often. We got some extra days at activation, so it ended up an average of 7 minutes per day she could use. That's about 23 texts per day. She knows she has to "budget" her minutes which keeps the texting-for-no-reason at bay. She enjoys checking her minutes per day remaining and seeing her average go up.

I have Tracfone too and don't use it a lot, so it's a good fit for me too. I am totally going to get the 3000 minutes next time for myself, now that DH and DD both have texting I find myself using it more.