Another Virgin Mobile user here. There is no catch with the “register your credit card - get $5 credit” thing Silver Fire was talking about upthread. I did it and never even used the card to top up, and STILL got the bonus. You also get a $5 bonus if you decide you want a prettier model phone and pass your old one down to someone else.
I’ve had nothing but good luck with their customer service. It was incredibly easy to move my phone number to another Virgin phone - TWICE. The phone was ready to use within 5 minutes of online activation, and 15 minutes of charging after my initial purchase was enough to get me to Dundalk, MD from Richmond, VA with plenty of juice to spare.
In other words, if you’re going for prepaid, I recommend it.
I’ve had a Tracfone for about 2 months now, and have had only a few problems with a call being dropped or forgetting to lock the keypad and the phone getting bumped and dialing out on its own. I bought the phone for $38 at Kmart, and the minimum I have to pay is $19.99 every two months. That keeps the phone active for 2 months (your due date shows up everytime you turn the phone on) and gives me 100 minutes (plus extra free minutes using the coupons that came with the phone, and your minutes left are prominently displayed). As long as I pay the minimun $19.99 ( I buy a card at Kmart and then activate it online)every 60 days, I’ve got a phone. I don’t travel out of state, but there is a map on the website that shows your coverage area for each type of phone.
The only thing I don’t like is that you use up minutes faster than on cell phone plans that use portions of minutes. If I call someone, and they don’t answer, I’ve used up a whole minute just to have the phone ring 5 times. And I’ve found that I use the phone a lot more than I had planned, so I’m buying minutes more frequently. My daughter also had a Tracfone, and her fiance has a cell, and my son needs one, so we are considering one of the family plans from another carrier. We just use it more than we had planned. For the type of use you are thinking about, $10.00 a month seems reasonable.
I’ve got Virgin mobile, and it pretty much rocks my house. I’m like you - wanted a cellphone for emergencies or for travelling, but didn’t want the hassle of a monthly plan - that’s what my land line’s for. Did my research, went with Virgin. Yep, $20 every three months, which adds to your airtime and carries over as long as the phone’s kept current (which is why I now have about $60 on the thing. That’s how often I use it.)
As someone else said, it piggyback’s on Sprint’s network, so coverage is good in all major cities and along major highways. If you’re in the sticks, coverage can be spotty, so check the coverage maps closely before you buy. Other than that, the plan’s simplicity itself - 25 cents a minute for the first 10 minutes in a day, 10 cents thereafter. No roaming, no overages, no anytime v nighttime minutes, nothing. I’m a really big fan.
You can connect it to a credit card, but no payments are ever initiated without your input - it just makes it easier to add time. There are never any automatic charges. Virgin will remind you with e-mails that your phone needs you, but they never just charge you automatically - it’s up to you to do the adding, which you can either through cards you buy at Best Buy or Target or via your connected credit card. This was really important to me. Some pre-paid plans I looked at automatically charged you $10 a month or added more money for you when you fell below a certain limit, which I didn’t want. I wanted absolute control over when I added more money.
No, though they won’t be delighted either. 911 here suggests that if you do so, do it in off hours (not at 11 o’clock on a Saturday night!), and make sure you stay on the line and let them know you’re only testing.
Thanks for all the replies, everyone. And thanks for the comparison chart, rowrrbazzle. It seems like we will be able to do what we want for less than $100 a year, no matter who we go with, which doesn’t seem like a very high price to pay for some peace of mind.
According to the bottom of page 12 of Rite Aid’s online circular for our region, mhendo, Tracfone wireless mobile phones are $40. There appears to be some fine print, but I haven’t found a way to enlarge the circular enough to read it.
One bad thing about my Tracfone that I forgot about – I haven’t been able to figure out the voice-mail setup. I looked at it, a geeky pal looked at it, a young 'un looked at it – too much for all of us. Since I don’t really use the phone, that’s no biggie for me, but it might be a deal-breaker for you.
I’ve used tracfone for a couple of years and generally have been happy with it.
I’ve never had trouble setting up voicemail. It’s no more complicated than setting up voicemail for any other system.
If you roam it charges double minutes. I think the need to input a code when roaming may be dependent on a particular phone model, and I think you can disable this setting. I’ve never needed to enter a code when roaming.
Your tracfone can never be used for any other service.
Some things seem to depend on the model of the phone. For example, my older model tracfone doesn’t charge a minute if I call someone and let it ring for under 30 seconds. My brother got a newer model and it seemed to charge him.
Part of what you pay in minutes will be a fee for the 911 network , which is why it was suggested that you just get an old phone , unless you also meant household emergencies which the wife wants you to get bread or milk or some such.
I would also suggest that you look into how much you pay for text messages , since your paying airtime , as well as the message ,your also paying for the umm,ahs and whatnot that take up air time , text messages are really great for simple communications that dont take up a lot of time.