Prepaid Cellphone Deals

[severtki]

Just to second the opinion, the STI Mobile deal through CheapPhoneCards, about which there was an earlier thread, has been pretty good for me so far. Minutes don't expire and coverage is same as Sprint network.

The phone is very basic with not-so-good battery life, but for what I use it for, it's been fine.

 

[Greg04]

Originally posted by: PELarson

Originally posted by: Rumpltzer
I have a Virgin Mobile prepaid phone for my wife to use when she's in the country. It's really just for when she's not with me and needs to call or there's an emergency or whatever.

It requires a $20 recharge every 90 days, but if you ignore their pleas to recharge beyond the 90 days, they'll let you keep the number and credit for an additional 30 days past that. However, you can't use the phone after the 90 days without recharging it.

You might get away with $60/year if you're often out of the country or something.

Others claim that Target has the $20 recharge card on sale for $15 every now and then, but I've only seen that once last year. It'd be nice if it happened again.

This is what I use -- I love it. I'm in lower Manhattan and as long as you aren't a heavy user, this plan rocks. I pay less in minutes fees than I use to pay in those stupid taxes every month.

The best option for a minimal user, with Virgin Mobile, is to do the Auto Top Up every 90 days for the minimum amount which is $15/90 days.

 

[mikeford]

I've read this thread and a few others, and I still don't know how to proceed.

T Mobile seems like a good fit for my light usage, but where do I get a phone? Ebay? Target?

I even narrowed it down to hunting for a Nokia 6010, $79 on Tmobile site with a $30 rebate (net $50), but its not turning up anyplace else without a plan.

 

[Gilby]

The T Mobile to Go package with the Nokia 6010 and some air time is $40 at both Target and Wal-Mart. If you don't want to do rebates, that's about your best deal. You could also see if you can find something cheaper on Ebay.

 

[SwishSween]

I recently did the tmo to go plan with a new nokia 6010 and I must say I like the nokia phone a lot better than my crappy lg vx3100s that I used to have. Even though t-mobile lists the coverage as "fair" at our house, I have 1-2 bars most of the time and that is plenty for the nokia to place and keep the call. We dropped verizon postpaid because we weren't using it as much and the reception was not good at our house. I did the $40 nokia package at target and getting the phone set up was a snap. I also just added a 1000 min phone card from cheapphonecards, which was also very fast (received the code within minutes). Can't really beat ~9 cents / minute. Free incoming text message is great, too.

 

[brucekatz]

Originally posted by: mikeford
I've read this thread and a few others, and I still don't know how to proceed.

T Mobile seems like a good fit for my light usage, but where do I get a phone? Ebay? Target?

I even narrowed it down to hunting for a Nokia 6010, $79 on Tmobile site with a $30 rebate (net $50), but its not turning up anyplace else without a plan.

You missed it, 2 days ago, you can get it for free. Now, it is about $15.

HSN price $85 - $30 T-mobile rebate - $25 HSN's rebate - $15 coupon ( google it, please.) = $15.

HSN's package comes with a car charger (it usually cost $5 - $15). The phone will be also activated, you don't need to do a thing.

I had 2 rebates with HSN's own rebates, took about 6 weeks, not too bad.

Edit:
Sorry, HSN's rebate is supposed to be $25, typo was $20.

 

[axelfox]

Originally posted by: brucekatz

Originally posted by: mikeford
I've read this thread and a few others, and I still don't know how to proceed.

T Mobile seems like a good fit for my light usage, but where do I get a phone? Ebay? Target?

I even narrowed it down to hunting for a Nokia 6010, $79 on Tmobile site with a $30 rebate (net $50), but its not turning up anyplace else without a plan.

You missed it, 2 days ago, you can get it for free. Now, it is about $15.

HSN price $85 - $30 T-mobile rebate - $20 HSN's rebate - $15 coupon ( google it, please.) = $15.

HSN's package comes with a car charger (it usually cost $5 - $15). The phone will be also activated, you don't need to do a thing.

I had 2 rebates with HSN's own rebates, took about 6 weeks, not too bad.

$30 AR now.

 

[brucekatz]

Originally posted by: axelfox

Originally posted by: brucekatz

Originally posted by: mikeford
I've read this thread and a few others, and I still don't know how to proceed.

T Mobile seems like a good fit for my light usage, but where do I get a phone? Ebay? Target?

I even narrowed it down to hunting for a Nokia 6010, $79 on Tmobile site with a $30 rebate (net $50), but its not turning up anyplace else without a plan.

You missed it, 2 days ago, you can get it for free. Now, it is about $15.

HSN price $85 - $30 T-mobile rebate - $20 HSN's rebate - $15 coupon ( google it, please.) = $15.

HSN's package comes with a car charger (it usually cost $5 - $15). The phone will be also activated, you don't need to do a thing.

I had 2 rebates with HSN's own rebates, took about 6 weeks, not too bad.

$30 AR now.

You can google a $15 coupon for first time shopper. It will be $15 AR.

 

[mikeford]

Sounds like best to wait a few days and keep checking for a deal. I am kind of surprized there doesn't seem to a "Phone" deal place.

 

[DanDaMan315]

Originally posted by: hansmuff
TracFone has a 150 minute card you can buy that lets you keep your airtime for a year. No need to buy monthly. That card costs you $90. For my usage pattern, that's way cheaper than any contract service and most other prepaids. I use about 30 to 40 minutes/month.

Yes sir.

 

[imported_Decaf]

Originally posted by: DanDaMan315

Originally posted by: hansmuff
TracFone has a 150 minute card you can buy that lets you keep your airtime for a year. No need to buy monthly. That card costs you $90. For my usage pattern, that's way cheaper than any contract service and most other prepaids. I use about 30 to 40 minutes/month.

Yes sir.

Tracfone is much more expensive than the other prepaid deals being discussed in this thread. For instance, their 150 minute card for $90 translates to 60 cents a minute.

With Tracfone you can keep your costs low only by not using your phone.

In order to decrease your per-minute rate with Tracfone, you have to buy large quantities of minutes. That doesn't sound bad until you lose your phone and then you find out that you also lost your minutes! Ouch.

 

[mikeford]

All the prepaid deals look great in the large print part, its the fine print at the bottom of the page that makes one deal better than the others. So far to me as a small amount of minutes user the best deals look like;

T Mobile, buy a phone for $50 or less, no activation? and a $100 phone card and I am good for a year/1000 minutes, with second year costs even less.

Virgin Mobile, not sure on phone, or activation, but guessing about the same, and $15/90. Daily per min cost kinda high at $0.25 for first 10 min each day.

Everybody else higher either in daily/monthly minimums or cost per min.

What surprizes me is the VOIP minimum costs are higher than for a cell phone, and less so that prices for regular cell phones isn't budging from a min of about $30/month.

 

[HBMaGneT]

Originally posted by: mikeford
All the prepaid deals look great in the large print part, its the fine print at the bottom of the page that makes one deal better than the others. So far to me as a small amount of minutes user the best deals look like;

T Mobile, buy a phone for $50 or less, no activation? and a $100 phone card and I am good for a year/1000 minutes, with second year costs even less.

Virgin Mobile, not sure on phone, or activation, but guessing about the same, and $15/90. Daily per min cost kinda high at $0.25 for first 10 min each day.

Everybody else higher either in daily/monthly minimums or cost per min.

What surprizes me is the VOIP minimum costs are higher than for a cell phone, and less so that prices for regular cell phones isn't budging from a min of about $30/month.

I did a ton of research and calling:

Virgin is rated the best prepay hands down by many big rating companies and cost very little. For the casual user it is best to calculate based on worst case price. I think it is $20/3months = $6.67 per month for 26 minutes a month.

I found that if you are going for cheap, STI is the way to go. Granted the phone is free after the hassles of a rebate, but got my order through with (1) phone + $5 minutes + bought another $10 in minutes for <$86.65 shipped.
86.65+0.37(stamp)-79=$8.02

Minutes NEVER expire!!! I confirmed with 2 CSR at STI. They also use Sprint's network, it was a pain finding out but if you look up you city in the coverage finder (do it for multiple states) you will see that it matches nearly exactly to Sprints digital network.

Phone is on route, hope it is decent.

I also went and got new service at T-mobile and will make $75 after it is all said and done.

HBear

 

[mikeford]

Except ......................

Virgin charges 25 cents a min for the first 10 minutes you use eash day, 30 min a month of light use adds $4.50, 60 min $9. Poof, no bargain.

Sti offers a phone many people don't like at all.

The T Mobile make $75 deal has 2 year costs of $750, less your rebate, only $685 for 300 min a month. (if you are confused, this is the 2 year contract deal, NOT a prepaid deal).

BTW so far good old Walmart is looking good on the Nokia 6010 prepaid at $39, not sure if I still get a rebate of $30, but its cheap enough I am about ready to get it.
(Rebate not good at Walmart).

 

[Stifko]

that HSN deal for the Nokia 6010 is a good one?
you guys and gals with that phone are satisfied with it?

 

[mikeford]

Foo, just looked that T Mobile rebate. ¦ Phones purchased at Wal-Mart, Sam?s Club, Costco
(Wireless Advocates) or Target are not eligible.

I guess thats why people were doing the price match at other places. Worth a shot I guess, but I do hate rebates.

 

[Chevydriver]

Watch your airtime with vm. Theres been numerous times that I ended a call with like 15 sec's or so to go (didn't even get to the 10-sec left beep) and was still charged for the next full minute. I've contacted them several times about this and they say its normal. They offered a few credits to me but now refuse to offer any more. I don't like there customer service at all and the automated answering thingy that you have to use to get to them is junk. The "ONLY" reason why i'm still with them is because I like the slider phone. I've been using vm and sti. Sti is much cheaper but unlike vm, sti doesn't have a way for you to keep track of your call usage other than the voice that tells you how much you have everytime you make a call. Makes it to hard to keep track of how much you got charged for the previous call and such and no way to check past calls history charges.

 

[HBMaGneT]

It really just depends on usage. Prepay is only a viable option for people that talk very little. For example I just got the Tmoble 39.99 plan with 600 anytime and unlimited nights and weekends. In that case once I talk over 391 minutes (total incl nights and weekends) with STI I start paying more then a plan. And it is even worst with Virgin mobile. As far as contracts go, people may want to stay clear of them, but in reality we as a society can no longer function the way we do without cellphone usage. Heck most of the people that I know no longer have land-lines. So short one year contracts workout great for people that talk.

But I got STI for my dad to use instead of putting him with me on a family plan and end up paying 15-20 a month for him using <20min a month. I think he doesn't care about the look of the phone. I will probably end up spending less then $4/mo. judging on his past useage over the last 6 mo. Saves me $10 a month, but I'll spend it else where, heehee!

I am waiting on the phone from STI to come, should be delivered today. Considering that it is very cheap /min and has no expiration date, it makes sense that it has less conviences. The less it needs to offer the lower the overhead. I'll see how bad it is when I try it out.

BTW how is STI with there phone rebates? Any exp?

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[imported_Decaf]

Originally posted by: mikeford
The T Mobile $75 deal has 2 year costs of $750, less your rebate, only $685 for 300 min a month.

As you mentioned in an earlier post "T Mobile, buy a phone for $50 or less, no activation? and a $100 phone card and I am good for a year/1000 minutes, with second year costs even less. "

 

[mikeford]

I was talkin about a post just above mine, but one or two more slipped in while I was typin.

I have been looking, but so far nobody has the Nokia 6010 in stock for the T Mobile to go plan (nobody local yet that I could maybe price match to walmart).

 

[Macro2]

Great thread

 

[shortylickens]

For anyone that uses Tracfone they have a promo code if you do their survey.
The code is 59585 and gets you 200 bonus minutes on a 300 minute card.

I did the math on this and if I had been using my 39.99 a month to buy units instead of ATT service, I would have about 4100 units with Tracfone. The same money at ATT only gets me 8400 minutes and I lose whatever I dont use each month.

Now that I am a Cingular customer I get rollover minutes, but the problem is I just never use them.

(I only mention the code here because it seems like so many coupon sites nowadays dont actually offer coupons.)

 

[ECartman]

so what's the best deal for someone who uses the phone only for emergencies (like my mom and several old relatives). I have several folks I must buy for who talk < 100 minutes a year.

Is Virgin Mobile the cheapest at $60 a year plus the phone cost?

 

[SwishSween]

Originally posted by: ECartman
so what's the best deal for someone who uses the phone only for emergencies (like my mom and several old relatives). I have several folks I must buy for who talk < 100 minutes a year.

Is Virgin Mobile the cheapest at $60 a year plus the phone cost?

It depends. I think the following scenario might work out better if T-mobile has decent coverage in your area:

- get nokia 6010 for nearly free after rebate from HSN (do a search for "nokia 6010" on hsn.com) which is $73.90 - $15 off $20 coupon (you google it) - $55 in rebates = $3.90 for the phone. Then, you can get a 1000 minute card for ~$90 from a place like cheapphonecards.com. After getting the 1000 minutes, you become a t-mobile gold rewards member and when you buy more minutes, all of them roll over for another year (this is the part I've heard yes/no about - comments are welcome ). So, you could buy another 60 minutes ($15) near the end of one year and extend it into the next year.

If they really did only use 100 minutes a year, you could do this for 10 years (assuming this is how we communicate in 10 years) and be way ahead of Virgin.

Just my thoughts. I switched to tmobile prepaid and i've been happy so far. Good luck.

 

[MOCKBA1]

I think VM is cheapest, at least I didn't find any cheaper for my usage pattern. VM offers also # Pay a daily charge of 35¢.
# Get 10¢/minute all day long. However I found this plan more expensive.