prepaid phone plan question (transfer, service, Sprint)

[DeanJ44]

When you stay with the same cell phone service provider and you have a pre-paid phone - when you get a new phone and stay with the same provider - do you have to do it at the very end of your month or lose the remaining service days that you already paid for on the old phone? In other words, if you switch phones in the middle of the month - does your plan restart and you just lost 2 weeks worth of what you had paid --

OR

is the plan totally unaffected by changing phones on a prepaid plan? I am now with Boost since Virgin migrated everyone to them a couple of weeks ago and have no information and can't find it on their website.

Thanks.

[pcity]

Should be completely unaffected as long as you're keeping the same account.

Customer service should help you migrate the account to the new phone if it isn't easily doable online or through an automated phone systsem.

[jiminnm]

Originally Posted by pcity

Should be completely unaffected as long as you're keeping the same account.

Customer service should help you migrate the account to the new phone if it isn't easily doable online or through an automated phone systsem.

Been with TracFone for 15-16 years, on my third phone, and that's how it works. Everything on my account transferred to the next phone. You can do all of it online if you get one of their phones.

[DeanJ44]

I really don't want to stay with Boost, as I can't find any of their phones that are cheap enough. Most other carriers have phones that area lot cheaper.

But one of the reasons I was consider staying was that I assumed that an advantage of doing so would be that you wouldn't lose that money for the unused portion of whatever month you are in, VS my assumption that if you switched carriers, that if you had only gone 1 week into your month, and you got a new phone with a new carrier, that you would just kiss goodbye that 3 weeks worth of money you had paid to the old one.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by DeanJ44

if you had only gone 1 week into your month, and you got a new phone with a new carrier, that you would just kiss goodbye that 3 weeks worth of money you had paid to the old one.

Yes, that is correct. With prepaid plans you paid for the month (or more) regardless if you use the time or not.

I had a Virgin Mobile plan for my friend, and the next month began on a Monday. On Saturday she broke her phone and could not get a new one since Virgin Mobile had stopped selling phones in brick and mortar stores. She went to Sprint (who owns Virgin Mobile and Boost) and got a new account with the same phone number, but they would not refund the $65 on Virgin Mobile or even transfer it to the Sprint account even though the month I paid for had not yet begun.

[Peregrine]

I just looked at Boost... they have a phone for $25 and another for $50. How much cheaper do you want a phone?