Tracphone

Thank you all for your replies. This is what I've done.
I made a call to Missouri, have a sister and brother-in-law there. I gave him all my info and he bought a card and added it to my phone/account. Now the weird part; I logged into my account and it let me update my phone. The new minutes show on a phone that has no service here, very strange.
So the plan is to come back with enough cards to keep the phone active, like ''bumpy'' I'll end up with more minutes then I can ever use.
Maybe I can donate them to charity?
Best of the New Year!

Lorne&Lorraine wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:

Lorne&Lorraine wrote:
.

Also, I understood that all accumulated minutes were lost if the phone expired and a new SIM card was needed.

the $5.95 a month continuation plan cures these headaches.
bumpy

Would this would work if the phone has no service like in Canada ie must the phone itself be updated to keep the account active? If one could use more minutes, on an annual basis it seems like spending about the same amount of money for four 90 day cards that provide both time AND minutes might be a better approach. Also, I suspect that a Canadian would need a US bank based credit card with a US address to invoke the continuation plan option.

I would "guess" that trakfone wouldn't really care where the credit card was issued, when you swipe your card on both sides of the border does the salesperson care? but you don't need to ever use the phone to keep it in effect as far as I know. it costs me $72 a year to keep my service/minutes and I built the minutes up to about 2,000 before I switched plans. it was about $95 a year for a card at Sams with 200 or 400 minutes IIRC and due to my limited use, didn't need any more minutes. but why 90 day cards? does that mean that you would have to come down to the states every 90 days to renew? and why not an annual card?
bumpy

Bumpyroad wrote:

Lorne&Lorraine wrote:
.

Also, I understood that all accumulated minutes were lost if the phone expired and a new SIM card was needed.

the $5.95 a month continuation plan cures these headaches.
bumpy

Would this would work if the phone has no service like in Canada ie must the phone itself be updated to keep the account active? If one could use more minutes, on an annual basis it seems like spending about the same amount of money for four 90 day cards that provide both time AND minutes might be a better approach. Also, I suspect that a Canadian would need a US bank based credit card with a US address to invoke the continuation plan option.

Lorne&Lorraine wrote:
.

Also, I understood that all accumulated minutes were lost if the phone expired and a new SIM card was needed.

the $5.95 a month continuation plan cures these headaches.
bumpy

While in Canada I've purchased Tracfone airtime "cards" on-line from Walmart.com. The PIN number is emailed to you. But I still don't know if adding the card via Tracfone's web site is sufficient to keep the account active when the phone has no signal or whether the time/minutes also have to appear on the phone itself, which, of course, is not possible if the phone has no service signal.

Last I heard, Tracfone would not mail a new SIM card to a Canadian address. Maybe this has changed.

Also, I understood that all accumulated minutes were lost if the phone expired and a new SIM card was needed. It would be nice if this were not the case and some on this thread are reporting otherwise. As suggested, maybe a phone call to Tracfone can address.

Tracfone's CDMA phones worked in Canada (not anymore?) but Tracfone would cut off the service if they became aware of such use. Some people apparently got away with limited use. I believe Tracfones sold now in Walmart stores are all GSM phones with SIM cards and they do not work in Canada.

Friends of ours just bought a tracfone a few days ago. They were told that if they called Tracfone before they left Canada they would send them a new SIM card for free. When they got to the US they could go to a Walmart and they would install the new card and the phone would be updated with any left over minutes. Just what they were told. We just threw our other phone away and bought a new one for $19.98.

You could try emailing them and explain. Tracphone tried to update my phone while still in Canada in Nov and they said it would work and the only reason it did not work was that I did not have a US credit card-they were helpful and did save my 200 minutes until I arrived in the States and then bought a $20 card to update so saved my number and contacts. In the future could buy a card good for 90 days and then update while in Canada if running out before returning.

bobmacc wrote:
You NEVER could update your Tracphone from Canada as there is no Tracphone service available in Canada.

Correct except for the "NEVER" part. It used to work in Canada (where I live) but not anymore.

Cool Canuck wrote:
With Tracfone I add a year of service at a time to preserve the phone #

That's what I do. It's so cheap (compared to Canadian phones) I can't imagine why anyone would do anything different.

To keep my telephone number and to avoid losing minutes, I too buy one year of service on my Tracfone before leaving the US (actually buy four 60 minute “cards” so with double minutes on the phone I also get lots of minutes along with the one year of service).

I now use a credit card issued by a US based bank along with a US address so I can buy minutes on-line or on the phone itself. But before this, I WAS able to buy minutes on-line using my CDN credit card IF I didn’t log onto Tracfone’s web site FIRST. Going on-line to Tracfone’s web site, I selected the “buy minutes on-line option” without logging in. Then when it came time to pay, I was able to select Canada as the country which allowed me to then enter my CDN address. This wouldn’t work when I logged into my Tracfone account before attempting to buy minutes. I don’t know if one can still get around the US address thing in this manner.

I tried once to add minutes on-line when I was still in Canada and had no service to the Tracfone. I was able to add the minutes on-line using the credit card/address work-around noted above but, of course, since I had no service to the phone these added minutes did not show up on the phone itself. The next time I crossed the border and had phone service, the minutes did show up on the phone, but only after going on-line to Tracfone’s web site and retrieving a string of numbers to punch into the phone. In this case, the extra minutes were added before my time on the phone actually expired so I don’t know if just updating the minutes on the web site alone would have kept the phone active or not. Maybe someone has experience with that.