Tracphone

get the service protection plan, about $6.95 a month and it automatically keeps your service active. then just buy cards as needed to add minutes in the states.
bumpy

almcc wrote:

Cool Canuck wrote:
With Tracfone I add a year of service at a time to preserve the phone # and that comes due in March. The minutes do not expire. A tad more expensive than Net10 (same company) but I find it worth the little bit extra.

I also have a Wells Fargo account and have an American address on the check card which eliminates a lot of issues with online purchases and fuel pumps.

I also bought a year of service before we left the US last spring, it's the most painless way of preserving the service and the number. I also lent the phone to my neighbour who was in the US last summer to use some of the large number of minutes you get!

I also buy a year. My phone has Triple Minutes For Life. I end up with a phone bill of about $9.00 a month.

Plus about $50.00 for my FIDO phone when in Canada for the Summer.
In Canada most calls are with Skype.

Sidney

Cool Canuck wrote:
With Tracfone I add a year of service at a time to preserve the phone # and that comes due in March. The minutes do not expire. A tad more expensive than Net10 (same company) but I find it worth the little bit extra.

I also have a Wells Fargo account and have an American address on the check card which eliminates a lot of issues with online purchases and fuel pumps.

I also bought a year of service before we left the US last spring, it's the most painless way of preserving the service and the number. I also lent the phone to my neighbour who was in the US last summer to use some of the large number of minutes you get!

take a 90 mile trip and keep the 500 minutes.
bumpy

With Tracfone I add a year of service at a time to preserve the phone # and that comes due in March. The minutes do not expire. A tad more expensive than Net10 (same company) but I find it worth the little bit extra.

I also have a Wells Fargo account and have an American address on the check card which eliminates a lot of issues with online purchases and fuel pumps.

You NEVER could update your Tracphone from Canada as there is no Tracphone service available in Canada. When you update your phone, the Tracphone system needs to communicate with your phone - which it can't do if you are out of the service area in Canada - hence you must update when you are in the US and have service available. This is not a shortcoming of Tracphone but rather a fact that any cell service cannot be updated where there is no service or they do not have a roaming agreement as is the case with Tracphone. This is one of the reasons that Tracphone is at the top end of the value scale (cheapest) for the services it provides.

We use Skype to call phone numbers US or Canada when we have wifi. It only costs a few pennies per minute. We do take our Canadian cell phones to use in emergences and pay the big $ per minute. This costs us a lot less then it did with the US plan from Bell. Our cells are a $15.00 per month plan and we never use all the minutes. I'm afraid to get a phone that is smarter the I am.

I just went thru 3 days of hell with Tracphone trying to add minutes and service days from Canada. I knew the phone would not work in Canada so I used their internet site to do the updating.

I tried using 2 credit cards including the one I used to purchase the phone from their site.

4 emails and 3 calls from their reps and the problem explained: "it was an executive decision not to accept international credit cards to add minutes and days."

So the only solution is to get across the border, buy up some cards and use them when needed.

You may also try this number 1-800-876-5753
This number is in Miami FL. I have always had more intelligent response there.
The number MAY not work from Canada, but I have called it from Canada using Skype.
There is no reason for you to lose any minutes.

Sidney

Have you tried updating your phone online instead of via the phone?