Tracfone - what kind of minutes do I need to buy and where

I have had a tracfone for years. I purchased my first one from Walgreens as an emergency phone for me to travel when my mother was ill. When the minutes ran out, I started shopping around. I found that when they have a tsv on tracfone, you can actually just upgrade the phone cheaper than going through tracfone to have minutes added to the phone. If you have any unused minutes, transfer them to your new phone during activation. I have actually also bought minutes from ebay. Ebay was actually the easiest as you did not loose your phone contacts. I know there is suppose to be some way to do that, but I was not able to do it, so I just manually added the ones I wanted.

The triple minutes are attached to the phone/account and not the card, so whatever card you buy should give you the triple minutes. If you want another yearly card, then Amazon and E-Bay are often your best bets price-wise. Those cards are routinely $89 (or so) on those sites. If you keep an eye on the Q and the Southern network you can often find good deals also where you get a year card and new phone (with triple minutes) for around $100.

I have a tracfone--I have since twice bought minutes by calling the tracfone #--I have to admit that its a hastle but it's the only way I have gotten more minutes--I don't know how to get more minutes if u buy a card--have seen them all over the place--even in grocery stores--the reason why I say it was a hastle was because the person who answers doesn't seem to speak very good English & I had to spell everything for him--that is the same person both times that I called--but all said--I did get my triple minutes that I paid $99--when I purchased the triple minutes for $99 in June it got me to Feb.the first time--so that was $99 I paid for 8 months of service!!--I admit I don't live by my phone as some people do--but I am happy about my tracfone purchase--and if I get 8 months of service for $99 that's a steal!

I've had tracfones for serveral years and normally, instead of buying minutes, I just upgraded to another tracphone and rolled over my remaining minutes but there was always a hassle about keeping my same phone number. About 2 months ago, I realized that my year was about to expire on using my minutes(about 3,000) so I had to either upgrade phone again or buy minutes. Trying to get that place on the phone proved frutile so I went online. It was very easy. I extended for 90 days for $20 + tax. I wanted to keep my same number because when I bought my car this summer, the saleman blue toothed my number for me. I don't know how to do it, lol. Plus, everyone already has this number.

Go online and it's supersimple and doesn't cost a lot. If I have to extend four times in a year, it's still only $80. As someone said, the triple minutes are built into your account so is automatic.

Yes, buy the 400 minute 365day card from Tracfone website. Go ahead and create an account if you haven't, it tracks your triple minutes by your phone number.

Be sure you do it before your minutes or your service days hit zero. I think you have to have 1 or 2 minutes on the phone for it to load.

Or, another option, the last time my year was almost up, it was cheaper for me to buy a new phone with the triple minute feature than it was to reload my existing phone with the same. Your number and any remaining minutes/days transfer to the new phone.

can u tell me simply how to buy minutes for my tracfone when I buy a card--thanks

When you buy a card you simply scratch off the grey coating on the back of the card to reveal the activation code and then either key it into your phone directly, or use it online at the Tracfone website to get your minutes.

thanks--but how do u key it into your phone?

On 3/7/2015 danedylan said:

thanks--but how do u key it into your phone?

Hi danedylan,

Once you have scratched off the gray coating from the back of the card, you will use the numbers from your trackphone to key in the numbers from the card.

Once this is done please remember to keep your phone on & plugged in so that the system can apply your minutes. They will send you a text within a few minutes to let you know that you are all set.

Thanks!