I travel to the US yearly from the UK (Florida mostly)
Would like….
No Contract, pay as you go, no monthly top up required, and ideally no loss of minutes if not used for 6+ months.
Not too fussed about the best value I just need to something to text/call people in the US when I don’t have WIFI.
Thank you.
12 comments
Virgin wasnt horrible. Its 20 dollars every 3 months top up last i heard though to keep service.
Have you considered Three’s “feel at home” service? I’ve used that on trips to the US and it works great.
They sell prepaid phones and cards at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target and other stores that also carry mobile devices.
TracFone is a common pay as you go phone. $100 is their cheapest annual account but I’m not sure if it works with smart phones. Or $20 gets 90 service days and I think you can buy 4 at once. Or get it cheaper with auto-renew. You can get very cheap phones from them (as in $10 for a new but obsolescent android phone), but they will be locked to Trac.
I don’t know of any that let you keep minutes forever without paying to maintain service. Trac lets you roll over minutes forever as long as you have active service days. It’s easy to wind up with many thousands of minutes just from renewing service days.
Every time someone mentions pre-paid phone I think of “The Wire”.
Don’t be lazy and buy them same place every time or the cops will figure it out.
Burners!
I don’t know a lot about this personally, but a lot of phones still offer replaceable SIM cards. If you buy a global phone you can always just swap out the SIM card and use your existing phone while traveling. This way you don’t have to buy a new burner phone, keep all your contacts, settings, etc. And when you’re done you can just put your old SIM back in. Most carriers offer pay as you go plans, so research Florida and find a cheap service that has good coverage down there.
Lyca mobile is here as well. See if you can buy it before you reach here !!
Walmart whatever
I use Straight Talk, which you can get at Wal-Mart. You can get a $30 phone and the plan is $30 a month.
T-Mobile has a plan specifically for tourists:
http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-international-tourist-plan
EDIT: Oh, it expires, so it’s not good for repeat visitors.
I’m sure they sell minute cards at Radio Shack, Target, you name it.
not shore if this is still needed, but just a quick warning since i noticed you seemed to say your planning on using it in Florida: im from Georgia, and i used TracFone for a while. The reception was awful. Honest to god, i could just be walking through my house and calls would drop.