FREE Prepaid Cell Phone

jeff wrote in message ...


On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 19:17:25 -0400, " jeff wrote:



On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 15:35:54 GMT, "Mountain Mike^^"
wrote:


"Andrew White" wrote in message
...
Please, explain to me how $150 for a year is cheaper than $50 a year?


Siince you said please............

It's NOT $150 a year. It's 100 bucks for 1000 minutes. Got your own
phone,
fine. They can use it. After the first year it's $10 a year to keep all
unused minutes.

Got it??

Unless something's changed, I think you may be incorrect. I'm on that
T-Mobile
plan (I tell everyone about it, it's the best deal I've been able to
find). But
I think you have to refill in increments of $100.00 to have all of your
unused
minutes extended for another year. That was my understanding when I
switched
from a monthly account with them to this prepaid account. It doesn't
change my
high opinion of the deal....for a low usage account, it comes out to like
$8.50
a month for someone like me.

Update...I just checked with the local T-Mobile store... You were correct,
in
that you keep your unused minutes, but as I thought, if you add less than
$100.00, your unused minutes only get an extended expiration that matches
the
new purchase. In other words, if you add $10.00, your unused minutes get
extended by 30 days, which is the length of time those $10.00 worth of
minutes
last.

As I read it, after you become a gold member, any extension is good for a
year. It appears that after the first time you buy $100 worth of minutes,
you become a gold member, so after that first $100 purchase, you could
extend by $10 at a time, and the minutes would be good for a year after
purchase. I may have misunderstood, but that was the way it appeared to
read.

Disclaimer - I have no financial interest in T-Mobile.

Bruce

wrote:

Unless something's changed, I think you may be incorrect. I'm on that T-Mobile
plan (I tell everyone about it, it's the best deal I've been able to find). But
I think you have to refill in increments of $100.00 to have all of your unused
minutes extended for another year. That was my understanding when I switched
from a monthly account with them to this prepaid account. It doesn't change my
high opinion of the deal....for a low usage account, it comes out to like $8.50
a month for someone like me.

The big problem with T-Mobile's prepaid phones is that there is
absolutely no 800/850 MHz roaming onto other carriers. This may be okay
in some areas, but it's a major problem in many others. You can compare
the huge difference in coverage between T-Mobile postpaid and T-Mobile
prepaid, on T-Mobile's web site.

With 7-11 SpeakOut, you're on Cingular, but can roam at extra cost onto
other carriers.

With PagePlus, you're on Verizon, but can roam at extra cost onto other
carriers.

PagePlus is really the best deal in prepaid in terms of price and
coverage, but you do have to add money every four months.

I was just up in the Santa Cruz mountains earlier today, in Castle Rock
State Park. No Cingular coverage, no Sprint coverage (odd, because I
thought there should be roaming onto Verizon), no T-Mobile coverage, but
Verizon, and hence PagePlus, worked fine. If you're traveling off the
beaten path, outside of urban areas, you really want a tri-mode phone,
CDMA/AMPS, to have the greatest possible coverage.

SMS wrote:
With 7-11 SpeakOut, you're on Cingular, but can roam at extra cost onto
other carriers.

With PagePlus, you're on Verizon, but can roam at extra cost onto other
carriers.

with virgin, through sprint, there is no roaming.

jeff wrote in message ...

Where are you reading it? .....the site seems to be moot on the subject,
as
least where I'm looking. And the guy at the store confirmed my
understanding
(I'd love for it to be the other way -- I have a recharge coming up in a
few
months, and I'd love to be able to do it in much smaller increments).

I read exactly the same thing. Look at the chart on the web page....

MM^^

jeff wrote

On Sat, 2 Sep 2006 18:04:22 -0700, "bruce" wrote:


As I read it, after you become a gold member, any extension is good for a
year. It appears that after the first time you buy $100 worth of minutes,
you become a gold member, so after that first $100 purchase, you could
extend by $10 at a time, and the minutes would be good for a year after
purchase. I may have misunderstood, but that was the way it appeared to
read.

Where are you reading it? .....the site seems to be moot on the subject,
as
least where I'm looking. And the guy at the store confirmed my
understanding
(I'd love for it to be the other way -- I have a recharge coming up in a
few
months, and I'd love to be able to do it in much smaller increments).

OK - I went to their page for pre-paid plans:
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/Plans/D...plancategory=4

On that page is a chart showing refill values and expiration dates of
refills, around the middle of the page. Off to the right side of that chart
is a yellow box showing refill values for Gold Rewards plans. It seems to
say that if you are a gold rewards person your refill - any refill - is good
for a year. Just below the chart is a paragraph that says, "Add $100 in
refills to become a Gold Rewards customer." After that I put 1 and 1
together and came up with what I posted above. Now I may be making
unrealistic assumptions, but that is what I see. Good luck and HTH

Bruce

SoCalMike wrote:
SMS wrote:
With 7-11 SpeakOut, you're on Cingular, but can roam at extra cost
onto other carriers.

With PagePlus, you're on Verizon, but can roam at extra cost onto
other carriers.

with virgin, through sprint, there is no roaming.

Yes, that's the biggest problem with Virgin. You're limited to Sprint's
1900 MHz PCS network, which greatly limits your coverage.

jeff wrote in message ...


On Sun, 3 Sep 2006 09:19:04 -0700, "bruce" wrote:

OK - I went to their page for pre-paid plans:
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/Plans/D...plancategory=4

On that page is a chart showing refill values and expiration dates of
refills, around the middle of the page. Off to the right side of that
chart
is a yellow box showing refill values for Gold Rewards plans. It seems to
say that if you are a gold rewards person your refill - any refill - is
good
for a year. Just below the chart is a paragraph that says, "Add $100 in
refills to become a Gold Rewards customer." After that I put 1 and 1
together and came up with what I posted above. Now I may be making
unrealistic assumptions, but that is what I see. Good luck and HTH

Bruce

I also remember that by initially buying $100, I did indeed become a Gold
Member, so that also agrees with that chart..

Cool, I can spread my refills out when I need them, and be out less cash
each
time. Thanks for the help.

The biggest problem I see with T-Mobile pre-paid is that in many places
T-Mobile shares its network with Cingular. In the places where Cingular
provides the network towers, T-Mobile pre-paid does not have any coverage,
because they don't share those towers. If you can get by with just the
native T-Mobile coverage, you should be ok.

Bruce

jeff wrote in message ...

snip

Cool, I can spread my refills out when I need them, and be out less cash
each
time. Thanks for the help.

On second thought, doing it in $100 increments still gives the best per
minute
price, so I guess if you have the cash and intend to keep the account long
enough, it's still much better to do it in those increments. Still nice to
know
that if you need to go with less, they'll still be good for a year.

Even better, If I understood it correctly, the refill keeps all existing
minutes active for the term of the refill. So if you have only used one
10th of your minutes, and you are nearing the end of the year, simply buy
another $10 worth and extend all the minutes, including the remaining
9/10ths, for the next year. Again if I understood it correctly.

Bruce

bruce wrote:


Even better, If I understood it correctly, the refill keeps all existing
minutes active for the term of the refill. So if you have only used one
10th of your minutes, and you are nearing the end of the year, simply buy
another $10 worth and extend all the minutes, including the remaining
9/10ths, for the next year. Again if I understood it correctly.

Bruce



Don't overdo the time buildup. Sprint was my first wireless
service. I was forced from post pay to their prepay service
(another long story about their stupid incentive programs ;-).

July '00 while traveling I get sms about plan cancellation,
just what you want to see while on the road.

They decided to cancel prepaid card sales immediately and
service in October.

I added $30 cards every 59 days and only used a few minutes
each month. I had $223 accumulated over 2 years, and a
month to use it all up. (They would give me $40 credit to go
post pay, but everyone got that -byebye $223 ;-)

Made a lot of $30-40 ld wireless calls, no way were they
getting to keep that $223.

So, expect them to cancel or modify your program, use up
most of your time as you go along.

Like attw(cing) is doing to tdma users. (at least I only
have $10 at risk this time)

-larry / dallas

On Sun, 3 Sep 2006 12:02:31 -0700, "bruce"
wrote:


jeff wrote in message ...

snip

Cool, I can spread my refills out when I need them, and be out less cash
each
time. Thanks for the help.

On second thought, doing it in $100 increments still gives the best per
minute
price, so I guess if you have the cash and intend to keep the account long
enough, it's still much better to do it in those increments. Still nice to
know
that if you need to go with less, they'll still be good for a year.

Even better, If I understood it correctly, the refill keeps all existing
minutes active for the term of the refill. So if you have only used one
10th of your minutes, and you are nearing the end of the year, simply buy
another $10 worth and extend all the minutes, including the remaining
9/10ths, for the next year. Again if I understood it correctly.

Bruce


I would think that it would be required that you requalify for the
gold rate annually.