Getting the Most Out of Your Tracfone Service

So you've gotten your first Tracfone and couldn't be more happy with it. There's just one little thing that's been nagging you-- you wish its service could be a little bit cheaper. True-- it's definitely less costly than a contract-based cell phone service that can have plans running upwards of $100 a month. Nevertheless, you're still paying 33 cents a minute with Tracfone, which is way too much money. Worse yet, there's the problem of upgrading. Although basic phones are dirt cheap, the more advanced ones come at a pretty penny, some costing well over $30.

If you're currently unhappy with this state of affairs, there's good news-- there are several ways you can save money with Tracfone, some you'll be learning about in this article. With these tips, not only will you be able to shave down those hefty 33 cent phone calls to as low as 10 cents per minute, you'll learn how to upgrade to a high end model phone at a fraction of what it normally retails for.

1. Get a DMFL phone if you haven't already
If you bought a basic phone to just try out Tracfone and decide to stick with it, it would be in your best interest to immediately upgrade to a "DMFL", or Double Minutes for Life phone. A DMFL phone is a special type of phone that doubles the amount of minutes you get with each allotment of airtime you purchase. For example, let's say you decide to purchase 60 minutes of airtime, which at the time retails for around $20. On your basic phone, all you'd add to it is 60 minutes and 90 days of service. However, on a DMFL phone you would get 120 minutes instead. The reason? You'd get the base 60 minutes, plus an extra 60 minutes, equaling 120 minutes.

Ditto an airtime card of 120 minutes: on a DMFL phone, rather than just get the 120 minutes, you'd get 240 minutes. And yes, purchase a 400 minute, 365 day airtime card and you'd get a whopping 800 minutes!

Okay, fine-- you're sold on this idea of upgrading to a DMFL phone. However, you love your basic phone so much that you can't bear to part with it. Well, guess what? There's an alternative way of getting DMFL without having to give up your current phone. You can purchase a DMFL airtime card, which looks and acts just like a regular Tracfone airtime card. There is one major difference, though-- it doesn't give you additional minutes when you apply it to your Tracfone. What it does is configure your phone so that it gives you the same bonus minutes you'd get if it were a DMFL phone. So yes, you do have the option of being able to keep your phone and get double minutes on it.

If you do in fact decide to go this route in upgrading your basic phone, make sure you shop around first. You see, the DMFL airtime card normally retails for $50. However, it's frequently sold at a discount. In fact, Tracfone itself occasionally knocks the price down to as low as $20. So keep a lookout for any deals on either Tracfone's site or in the circulars of major retailer before you purchase this card.

One last thing: if one of the reasons why you're hesitant to upgrade to a DMFL phone is that you still have a lot of minutes left on your current one, there is a solution. You can transfer the minutes from your old phone to your new one, either by calling customer service or activating your newly bought phone online using your old one's number. Either way is fine, but in my opinion it's faster and easier just to go the online route. Provided you follow the instructions carefully, you should have your minutes transferred to your new DMFL phone in a matter of minutes.

2. Couple DMFL phones with promo codes
Another way to save money with Tracfone is to take advantage of the availability of so-called "promo codes." Promo codes are 5 digit codes that you can use to add bonus minutes to a specific airtime card or amount of airtime purchased. For example, one particular promo code may add an additional 20 minutes to, say, a 120 minute airtime card. Another promo code may give you 30 minutes on a 60 minute card.

If you think that you won't be able to add the bonus minutes on top of the ones that you get from a DMFL Tracfone, think again! Although it wasn't always the case, DMFL phones are now configured to accept promo code minutes. So yes, you can combine both a DMFL phone and a promo code to yield you as many minutes as possible. A typical example: you own a DMFL phone and purchase a 60 minute card. A promo code for this card adds an additional 30 minutes. How much do you get with the promo code? 150 minutes! How? You got 120 minutes first through DMFL (60 base minutes + 60 additional minutes), then the promo code added 30 minutes, yielding you a bumper crop of 150 minutes. Since a 60 minute card costs roughly $20, your DMFL phone combined with this particular promo code will reduce your phone calls from 33 cents to 13 cents per minute!

Alright, so here comes the $64, 000 question-- where can you get these codes? As soon as you become a customer, Tracfone will let you know of them, either through email, snail mail, or text messages. But hold off on using these codes, because there's something you need to know first. Every once in awhile, Tracfone will put out these special "hot", limited time only promo codes that offer an insanely huge amount of bonus minutes much larger than what it usually promotes. Sometimes these promo codes appear and disappear in such a short amount of time, you wind up learning about them before it's too late.

Because of this problem, many internet resources have sprung up with a listing of all of Tracfone's current promo codes. Three great resources are Slickdeals, Fatwallet and Prepaid.com. If you check these sites regularly, you'll come across some amazing deals that you would have missed by just going on Tracfone's promotions alone. So before you even think of using the codes that Tracfone sends you, visit these places first. For all you know, you might discover the deal of a lifetime!

3. Get airtime cards on sale
If you buy airtime cards regularly, you know that they more or less get sold at the same price all the time. However, this isn't always the case. Major retailers-- particularly big boxes and pharmacy chains-- will sometimes offer these cards at a 5-10% discount. So whenever you find yourself needing to purchase some airtime, make sure to check out the circulars of places like Family Dollar, Target, Walmart, and various pharmacy chains. I've seen 60 minute airtime cards going for as low as $17.99 in some of these places, so it's very possible that you'll be able to come across a great discount if you just take the time to look.

4. Upgrade smartly
There might come a time when you'll want to upgrade from your current phone to a more high end model with juicy features like sliding keyboard, camera phone, bluetooth, and other enhancements. Problem is, unlike more basic models (like the Samsung T101G) these high end phones don't come cheaply.

If there's a model you really have your eye on but feel is too expensive to get, don't give up hope-- all Tracfone models go down in price eventually, even the higher end models. So by just waiting for a few months, you'll be able to get the model of your dreams at a major discount. For example, the Motorola w376g, a model that has a camera phone, bluetooth, radio, and other enhanced features, used to be over $30 for about a year before having its price drastically reduced. Now it's frequently offered brand new on Tracfone's site for $19, with reconditioned models getting a bonus 60 minute airtime card.

If you're a little skeptical about getting reconditioned phones, I assure that there's no need for concern. For one, all phones come with a warranty. Number two, having bought several refurbished models myself I can tell you from experience that they're no more prone to problems than brand new phones. Number three, most reconditioned phones were either returned because they were bought for the wrong area code or the customer wound up not liking the model. So don't worry about getting burned with a lemon; it's more likely a reconditioned phone was returned for the reasons I mentioned and not due to some horrible mechanical glitch.

In summary
When you first sign up with Tracfone, it might feel as if your options are limited in terms of getting the most out of the service-- phone calls wind up costing you 33 cents a minute and better phone models can are much more expensive than basic ones. However, if you buy a DMFL phone, couple it with promo codes, look out for sales on airtime cards, and play smart when upgrading your phone, you'll be able to whittle down the costs of using Tracfone by more than half and get a high end model phone at a decent discount.