Cheap prepaid cell phone deal

[cute fuzzy bunny]

You'll be lucky to find one. I hear a lot of stores were flushed out of them by mid day yesterday.

The good news is that a bunch of the phones are getting returned by people who just wanted the $100 card for $65, so they'll probably get put back on the shelf sometime in the next day or so, and they should have plenty of the $100 cards.

If the store you're in doesnt have them, ask one of the employees to check inventory at other area stores.

I still cant believe I walked in on a Wii unloading. Went in for a free phone and ended up with $400 worth of video game crap.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

FYI - refill rate chart...

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Once you've added $100 card, you qualify permanently for gold member status, and all minutes added thereafter have a one year expiry and roll over minutes still unused.

Another seemingly good deal...I havent tried this and dont have all the details, but if someone is interested perhaps they could dig into it.

Looks like you can get a basic Sidekick handheld (browser/email keyboard thingy) for $49 after a $50 mail in rebate. Unlimited data service is $29/month. Then you can add prepaid phone minutes for voice calls that cost .15c a minute. Seems like they all expire in 90 days if unused though, no "gold rewards".

Thats ridiculously cheap for someone who wants to do a lot of mobile data crackberry stuff but only occasional voice calls use.

[tightasadrum]

These prices are unbelieveable! I pay as much every month for DD, DW and MIL's Cingular cell phones than you're paying every year. If I changed them all over to T-Mobile, (don't know if T-Mobile works well in our area or not), could they all keep their Cingular telepohone numbers?

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tightasadrum These prices are unbelieveable! I pay as much every month for DD, DW and MIL's Cingular cell phones than you're paying every year. If I changed them all over to T-Mobile, (don't know if T-Mobile works well in our area or not), could they all keep their Cingular telepohone numbers?

You should be able to port the number over. I don't know how, because I've never done it, and I'm betting you might get some grief from Cingular. But there was a federal law passed a few years ago that I thought made cell and even land line numbers portable.

2Cor521

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I'm not sure you can port a number to the prepaid, but its worth asking the question. Whenever I did an activation it asked me for the nearest area code and then gave me a number...if I didnt like it I could push a button and get another one. It has been a couple of years since I activated one though and maybe you can do it online with a number port.

They sure are cheap, but the caveat is that you cant be one of those people with the phone glued to your head. But for casual short conversations and occasional periods of heavier use they're great. I think over the last 3 years we've spent about $500ish for three phones with full use, and our cost this year will be this deal ($88) and maybe a couple of $10 cards to roll the minutes along.

That was the sweet part of this deal, was the free phone. You could buy one for each car and just leave it in the glovebox for quick calls or emergencies.

[GatorBuzz]

I went to Target and they were sold out, unfortunately. There isn't another Target in town, so I'll be on the look out for another good deal.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

All is not lost.

Someone posted the link to the phone on tmobiles web site, here it is:

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Tmobile is selling it for $29 with an included $25 recharge card, which is on top of the 15 minutes (or whatever) you get automatically on activation.

Buy that phone, activate it, but dont apply the $25 card to it yet...and when you've used the 15 minutes up, go here

T-Mobile To Go Refill Wireless Prepaid Cell Phone Airtime Minutes Online at CallingMart.com

Choose the $100 card, add to cart, go to checkout and enter the code "12offtmo1031"

They'll email you the PINS for a $100 card and that'll end up costing about $90. I've bought cards from them before and they've always sent them out within a few minutes to an hour. The pins dont have an expiration that i'm aware of but I wouldnt wait a year to put them in.

Add the $100 card either through the phone or on-line.

When those minutes are about to expire in a year, add the $25 card that came with the phone to add some minutes and extend whatever you've got leftover from the $100/1000 minute card for another year. Make sure you check the fine print on the $25 card to make sure it doesnt expire in a month or three months or something like that.

If you dont yap more than 500 minutes a year, that gets you a new phone and service for two years for $119.

If you still have minutes leftover after year two, buy a $10 card online and add that to extend them another year, or a $100 card to get you a thousand extra minutes and another year.

Either callingmart or cheapphonecards has the tmobile cards for around 88-92 with some coupon codes you can usually google or find on fatwallet.

[GatorBuzz]

Holy crap! Thanks very much for taking the time and effort to type all out that out. I, for one, appreciate it. I'm going to go that route.

Thanks again! I guess I owe you ANOTHER beer.

[Lakedog]

The local Target was sold out this afternoon but they assured me that the phones would be restocked throughout the week. Of course, they would not let me reserve one today since none were currently in stock. Hard to say if they will actually have the phones during the sale period though.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I can always use more beer!

I'm not sure they're going to get a lot more. The phone seems to be closed out, its not buyable on the target.com site, and even tmobile is dumping them.

But it sounds like some are going to be returned or have been already and just havent moved from returns to the electronics area. Skews of people on fatwallet are buying the combo and taking the phone back.

The second method is a little more expensive for the whole deal, but it also lets you try the phone and the service for a cheap price. If you're just not getting the coverage you want or you hate the phone, you're out $29. And its not THAT much more expensive.

One sort of nice byproduct of these phones is that they're pretty anonymous. You *can* log into the tmobile web site (you give it the phone number and it texts you a temp password) and put your name, address, a credit card for recharges and all that in, check your balances, etc. But you dont have to.

[Lakedog]

Thanks CFB for the info on the other method to get a decent deal -- like you say, might be better to try the phone and the service in my location (and only be out $29 if coverage is poor). Their coverage map was not the greatest here but appeared to be decent.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Coverage varies widely by region, but its been pretty good for us in two different residential areas about 90 minutes apart. Theres one spot off of a windy highway between here and my in-laws who live up in the Sierras where the signal drops off to zero for about a mile or two...and I doubt theres a soul living within 10 miles there. I wouldnt even know about that if my first tmoble phone didnt beep when it lost coverage and beep again when it came back Other than that one spot we get at least a couple of bars even in the more remote areas.

I heard some rumblings a few months ago about tmobile "doing away" with the To Go program and coming up with something a little less cheap and a little less flexible, but nothing concrete.