Yep! My stepson and grandson have these phones and the 'double your minutes' card - well worth the money to purchase the card, imho.

I just got one to have an extra phone on vacation - TracPhone was $9 with double minutes lifetime of phone! I bought a 60 minute card for $20 - which is doubled for 120 minutes now and the phone itself comes with 10. Not bad for $30! We have regular cell phones, but one person with us doesn't have one - so I bought the TracPhone so they can keep in contact with us. Cool!

Kayjones, you don't have to purchase the double minutes card! If ya get the phone it has "double minutes for life" already. That's the point.

What is the charge per minute?

My MIL has a Net10 phone and it cost $.10per minute. Net10 is somehow in with Tracphone, because if I call the toll free number..they answer "TracPhone"!?

I got my oldest boy the Tracfone for Christmas. I bought him the one that has a camera in it too for about 15.00 then 120 minutes. He loves it! He can buy his minutes at work too- Best deal for a good pay as you go phone!

Trish

Where is the best place to get one?

Not all of the TracFone's come with DMFL in it. I believe it's only the GSM phones, although they push them very hard to new customers because the cost per minute to TracFone is cheaper so obviously that's the lines they prefer you use since they sell the time for the same amount. For me, with my use and travel habits, CDMA is far better coverage. I've had all three types of GSM TFs, used the Sprint coverage featured in Virgin Mobile and STI and for me I will keep the CDMA, even though it's not quite as clear, at least you can communicate.

TracFone has various promotions going and don't forget the promo/bonus codes. They can add time, discount the cost or add minutes to your purchase. Some phones have free incoming text. It varies, so you need to do some research and do not make assumptions.

The cost per minute varies. If you look at retail cost, it's rather high, but if you don't use it a lot, the cost per month is the better way to look at it. I had to add some time to my phone last month so I bought a 120 minute card and got 120 "free" for the DMFL, another 30 for the promo on my phone that I get 30 free every time I add a card, and 40 more for using a bonus code on the purchase. So this purcase came to 9.6¢/min, definitely not my best deal I've ever gotten but I didn't have time to search for deals. Had I bought a larger card it would have been cheaper per minute but I had a lot of minutes left to carry over. Didn't really need to buy this many minutes this time but the CPM was cheaper than buying a 60 min card and I thought this was a good compromise.

TracFone lets you carry over minutes. Net10 is a good deal if you're a big talker. Most say if you use 300 min/month or more, Net10 is a better deal than TracFone, and yes, Net10 is owned by and operated by TracFone. And as I recall with Net10 you have to add monthly. It's been a long time since I researched them so I don't recall all the differences and technicalities of each.

You can purchase a double minutes for life card on Ebay for less that five dollars and use it on any tracfone.

The ones I bought didn't come with double minutes.

I used to have a Tracphone.

WalMart sells them

I just bought the Tracfone W376 (Motorola) from Walmart, has a camera, was about $20, haven't opened it yet but they said it has thr unlimited double minutes. Hope it works okay. We are not big cell phone users but were pleased with the Tracfone we already had.

I bought my Tracfone from Walmart. It is a LG and was around $20.00. I was with Verizon but they did not carry minutes over so I like this much better.
Lois

Question: If you almost never USE a cellphone, is Tracphone the best purchasse? Is the quality good -- i.e., can you HEAR clearly; can the other person hear you; are the phones sturdy?

DS has had me on his 'family first' plan with T-Mobile, which costs him $10 a month -- but DH now has no cell phone. I'm looking for options. We almost never use the cell.

chisue, as I keep telling people the first concern is whether you have reception where you need it. Then consider price. Assuming you're going to only use it in Chicago, most anything will be fine for you. They'll have excellent coverage. But if you travel, all bets are off.

For seldom used phones, prepaid is usually the way to go unless someone has a plan they can clone a phone or get a second phone and share minutes.

When I had Virgin, once the phone was purchased and set up, I could automatically add $15 worth of time every 3 months which makes it at that point $5/mo. T-mobile has their "gold" thing that after you add $100 the per minute drops and you can add just a $$10 card. TracFone, if you shop can come out cheap. Pricing depends a lot on what you're willing to do to get a better deal, and how long are you willing to commit to something. There's no one "cheapest"

As I said before, Virgin and my Audiovox phone was undoubtedly the clearest I've had, however it also had the smallest coverage area. Even in a metro area there would be issues inside steel buildings, low areas and the like. But, being digital, when it had a connection it was super-clear. GSM was probably second clearest, and covered second worst. CDMA the third clearest but 2nd to the best coverage area and TDMA/analog was the poorest clarity but best coverage. TDMA and analog have been shut off so I use CDMA. A GSM isn't bad but I'm also talking about my locale and those areas I travel frequently. One thing I forgot to mention is some of the CDMA TracFones will charge double minutes for roaming, which is why I bought the phones I bought.

As far as phone durability, that of course varies by the phone. All companies change phones often. But if you don't use it much, durability wouldn't likely be a concern.

Also on clarity, that can vary too, depending on the area you're located, whether you're in buildings or outside and a bunch of other factors. Again, for seldom used, it wouldn't seem that this should be too big of a concern.

One thing that comes to mind. Target has phones on clearance often. Virtually all come with starter minutes. Tracfones will get 10 minutes if you activate by phone or 20 min if you activate online. You can buy a small card and buy extended time to keep it going. Also, occasionally you'll run across a phone on Ebay with time on it at a good price.

One thing with a cell, even prepaid. You might as well use the minutes. It's essentially free long distance and with most, the time will carry over. I'm at the point that I have enough time that most all my LD calling is on the cell, and I make some other phone calls on it when I'm out, for convenience. Since I have the time, I might as well use it.

Thanks, cynic! I think I may keep my 'free' T-Mobile phone and use it to call DS and DIL 'for free', but also get DH TracFone service. I'll look at Target for a phone too -- thanks for your tip on that!

How do you find time to research and know all this stuff anyway? LOL

I liked the old Samsung flip-phone from T-Mobile but it has an integral battery, which is now not holding a charge. DS gave me a T-Mobile replacement, a Nokia stick phone (with camera), but wow, those are teeny buttons!

The T-Mobile service worked fine here and on Maui -- and there were no 'roaming' fees. Now, of course, we aren't GOING to Maui this winter because DH isn't feeling well. (Another story for another thread.)