Did you know you can add 365 service days to your tracfone account? Well you can. Any time you minutes online, Tracfone offers you the option to add 1 year of service days for $49.99. As far as I can tell from looking on tracfone.com is that the only offer this option when you add a refill card. But this does make for some interesting options.
Using Up Your Roll Over Minutes
Many long time Tracfone customers are carrying over 1000s roll over minutes, texts, and MBs of data. You can keep your minutes as long as your account is active so many people keep buying more minutes each year. But if you buy the least expensive service plan, say a $15 30 smartphone plan you can keep you service active for another year for $65. Not a bad deal as this could lower your overall yearly cost.
Low Cost Yearly Phone Service, Add Data as Needed
Buying a $15 smartphone plan and adding the $50 year of service is a an inexpensive way to keep your phone active. For $65, you have an active phone number with 200 minutes of talk, 500 text messages, and 200MB of data. While that is not a lot of service, you’ll be able to add 1GB of data for $10 and 1000 text messages for $5. That data and those text messages will rollover indefinitely as long as your account is active. If you don’t spend much time on the phone, this could be a nice plan especially since you can add data as needed.
This information is over four years old. If the 1-year card is not available, why do you make people waste their time reading this invalid info?
Piss off. If you read through the links you’d understand what is and is not available.
I’ve given up on trying to get a discount and just purchase a $20 card every 3 months on W, and then leave a google calendar reminder. But heads up. I bought a moto e tracfone on hsn a few weeks ago for $30 which I haven’t activated yet but it’s supposed to come with 1 year service and 1200 min. When I activate this, I plan to hide it in my truck as an emergency phone and gps tracker. Cheapest option anywhere afaik.
I saw that deal. It’s really good. They sometimes have 1 year new activation BYOP kits on ebay for $30 to ?$50. FYI, you can buy thfoese $20 cards all at once if you want to only do it once a year. Google for a discount code, and purchase each card seperatelty. Sometimes you can find a code easily, other times there are none around.
I remember there was a $79.99 option with 365 days plus some number of minutes, mb, and texts but it disappeared a while ago. I’ve had a few readers who relied on that refill also comment that was the cheapest day to add one year of service days and now it’s gone. I’ve approximated that by adding 4 $20 90 day plans, which gives you 360 days. If you find a coupon code you can buy the plans one at a time and reuse to code to say a little on each plan.
I find with prepaid wireless and the tracfone brands in particular that assurances aren’t as reliable as actual customer experiences and anecdotes like yours.
Thanks for sharing
As of 6/8/2021 this work around doesn’t seem to work. I added $5 of texts to the cart, then the 365 day service plan. I deleted the $5 texts and the cart refreshed and was empty. I guess TF wised up to this “work around”. So to extend your service by 365 days, you at least need to spend an extra $5 for 1000 texts. This is still cheaper than buying the 365 days from an eBay seller: the cheapest was $59.99.
Thanks for the update. I can confirm your results. I tried adding a plan or extra data to the cart and selected the one year option in the cart. When I removed the initial plan or add on data from the cart, my browser updated and I was sent from the cart back to the plan page. I haven’t tried in the My Account app. I did not see the $5 add on text messages option on either the plan page or in the cart. That was an option I previously liked.
The options to add $5 text/$10 min/$10 data are at the very bottom of the “Buy Airtime” page. After you select one of those, you are taken to the page that has the 365 day service option. I don’t know why this should be different for you.
In any case, Home Shopping Network and the Tracfone store on eBay aften have great deals on phones that include 1500/1500/1500, like a Moto e6 for $59.99. You can get a new phone and service for little more than just buying the 365 days. (Remaining data/minutes/texts carry over to the new phone.)
With tracfone anything is possible. I sometimes see options appear and disappear simply by refreshing my browser
How do I order 365 day service days ? I’m trying to do it on line. Do I also need to order a phone plan to keep my many hours that I?
The article explains how to do this. And so does the video.
add a plan to your cart, check if the 365 add on is available, in the cart, if it is add it. At that point you can remove the initial plan from the cart
Only phones purchased from Tracfone are still eligible, see Tracfone Discontinued $50 One Year Service Days Add On
I want to buy days (one year for my phone 570-###-####)
Charles,
smartphonematters.com is not part of tracfone, so I can’t add days. to your account. Watch the video to learn if and how you can add the one year of service days to your account.
Last week I did the standard $99, one-year smartphone refill. Today I was going to do the same for my wife’s phone and that refill has disappeared. The cheapest one year is now $125.
I found the $99 deal on eBay. But then I just saw an incredible (?) deal on eBay:
“TracFone Smartphone Plan 6.9GB Data 6500 Minutes 7000 Texts 4 YEARS”
At $210, this seems like the best deal I’ve ever seen. Certainly never on an actual Tracfone site. I don’t know any way to verify if it is legit except to buy it. My experience on eBay is that PayPal does honor/enforce it’s guaranty, so there may not be a risk.
Any thoughts?
I ended up going for a one year, 1,500 minute card at $125 because I found a $50 promo card #34932 that worked today.
Nice, those promo cards are nice when you can find them.
I just looked, and yea, there used to be a $100 365 day card with 400 minutes, one of the new “classic” plans. I used to have my mother but those. I also recommend four $20 90 day refills to get 360 days for $80.
Tracfone doesn’t offer a four year plan. I suspect it is four one year refills.
I have yet to look into how those eBay resellers work or how they undercut prices so aggressively. One explanation I heard as that they are a credit card scam. You buy refills with stolen cards, and resell them. If and when the charges are disputed, the service plan cards never get revoked. So I’ve never heard from anyone saying a low priced refill they bought online was revoked. Cause eBay and PayPal would be all over it if they did.
Some say the credit card company eats the loss on purchases less than a certain amount as it less expensive to do so. And there seems to be too many of these resellers operating on eBay to all be a scam. but I have no explanation. It could be worth a try.
I am looking for the $49. 365 day, no time plan, but do not find any such thing. Today’s date 11/05/2020
Look at the link to the follow up
My service expires this (Sept.) month. I want to buy just time (no minutes) 1 year for $50.
My serial number is ……….
John
This site is not part of tracfone. Read the article to learn how to see if you can purchase the $50 one year of service days add on from the tracfone website.
can I buy data by the year?
You can buy 1GB of data for $10. The data does not include service days and does not expire as long as your phone is active.
I did get the $49.99 and here is how: I first go into basic plan refill and then click on the cheapest refill, which is $9.99 for 30 days and like 90 minutes and after you click continue which will take you to checkout, you will see a list of add ons and one of them is 365 days of service for $49.99. So, I ended up paying $60 for 365 days plus one month. Not bad. Should have noticed this before.
tried this today, 11/05/2020 there is no $9.95 30 day 90 minutes plan… best was $15 for 30 days 500 minutes, auto-refill plan, and when I got to the checkout, there were no service options, So, back to “search for best service refill plan” .
Did you read the updated article in the blue box on the page?
On 6/10/2020 I was able to get 365 service days added for 49.99 + tax using My Account online. My phone was purchased from HSN. To get the option for the service days I had to add something to the cart and then the service days option appeared. So it works for phones that were not purchased directly from TF.
Thanks for the comment. Yes that has been true for some time. Unfortunately, for Bring Your Own Phone customers the option has completely disappeared.
Actually I’ve had a frustrating couple of hours trying to figure this out. Yes, it used to work that way. I mean, last year I purchased added airtime on tracfone and then bought the 1 year service plan with it. But, last year they told me my phone was no longer any good on their network so I bought a phone upgrade somewhere else and transferred the mins. Worked ok, no problem but now as I get to end of the service date, there is no option to buy additional airtime on their website. The only option is to buy one of their service plans which go by monthly, bimonthly, etc and then I lose all my accumulated mins. Tried 3 times to get tracfone to explain this and of course got nowhere. I ended up buying airtime on walmart, and then adding to my phone which added 3 months but I can only find the 1 year cards on ebay and I’m not sure I’m comfortable purchasing it this way. I don’t know why this option is not available to me when it’s there for other customers but it looks to me like they’re trying to move all their existing customers over to more lucrative plans for themselves. But, I have a lot of minutes which I don’t want to throw away.
If you know a good source for the 1 year service card without mins, please post.
BYOP or KYOP phones are no longer eligible for the $50 1 year of service days add-on. Supposedly, phones purchased from Tracfone are. I encourage anyone upgrading to a new phone consider purchasing one year add-ons and / or triple minutes before upgrading to a new phone as the balance will carry.
You should still have the option to add basic plans. My current solution is to add 4 19.99 90 day basic plans. This yields 360 service days and 240 minutes for $80. Google for promo codes for a discount. Purchase each plan separately using the promo code each time. Not as good as the $50 add-on but tracfone clearly is moving away from many of the plans that favor modest use.
Ok, I get it. I originally bought a moto (something) from tracfone a few years ago. I had to replace it at the end of last year when they went to 4g so I bought a moto g6 on amazon and transferred the mins. I double checked and I guess this actually came from tracfone thru amazon so I suppose that’s why I can see the $50 option. My confusion was that I hadn’t been on their site since last year and they’ve changed things around to make it as confusing as possible. I have a smartphone so I’d pick a ‘smartphone’ plan, right. Nope. I’m adding mins, but there’s this box for ‘enroll’? Nope, doesn’t mean you’re enrolling in anything, just agreeing to ‘auto fill’. ‘add airtime’ only means something if you’ve purchased an airtime card from somewhere else like walmart and have a pin number. You can purchase airtime on their site but they call it a ‘plan’. Well, it’s not a plan at all. It’s just doublespeak. You’re just purchasing airtime and service days like before. I get it, but if I didn’t already have a gazillion mins accumulated I’d probably chuck the phone. Who knows how much longer they’ll offer this anyway.
is it my understanding that if you use the plan for unlimited talk/text
that it continues year after year; or am I reading something into this
that says you have to “re-apply” at the end of each year??
Thanks
Tracfone offers different types of plans. The Unlimited minutes and text plans come with data and you must pay every 30 data. The unused data rolls over with active service. These plans are for smartphones. Tracfone also offers plans that come with minutes, text, mb of data and service days. The minutes, text, and data remain active for the number of service days on your plan and roll over when you add another plan.
The phone you are interested in does not appear to be eligible for the unlimited talk (smartphone only plan). If you choose a phone that is eligible for the unlimited plan, you’ll spend a minimum of $20 per month for the least expensive plan. plus tax and fees.
I am looking for new service… I don’t understand the service plan option.
I am interested in unlimited talk text only, not data…
If I choose the $20 basic offering that seems to be the plan;
why would I choose a service plan of another 1,500 minutes, because
what I would be using would be unlimited talk.????
I see you require the service plan for the Doro 7050TL
Why is that?
am I correct in assuming that I can use the Doro for $20.00
then add another $125 or less for a monthly total of about $31.00 plus taxes
Thank you,
Don
You choose either an unlimited plan or one with minutes. basic phones don’t offer the unlimited plans.
If you buy the Doro you’ll need to add a service plan. If you are looking at a $125 plan offered for sale with that phone your math is correct. Other plans may only be for 30, 60, or 90 days. Be advised that a $125 plan only includes the number of minutes stated on the plan for the entire year.
I need to extend my contract 1yr on two phone
Ok. Read this. Tracfone Discontinued $50 One Year Service Days Add On
is you can’t find the $50 option when your in the cart, then see tomorrow’s video.
8/7/19 You must add something, anything, to your cart for the $49.99 one year of service option to appear under “more for your phone”. I added the $5 for 1000 texts, then got the option to add the year of service. Once both items were in the cart, I deleted the $5/1000 texts and it allowed me to proceed.
that is true for customers who bought their phone from Tracfone,
For others reading the comments… it is no longer true for people who Bring there own phones.
See Tracfone Discontinued $50 One Year Service Days Add On
Not any more! Tried this Aug 2019 and the 365 Service days option is no longer offered 🙁
I discussed that here Tracfone Discontinued $50 One Year Service Days Add On. See the comments there for more details.
I just added a year of time for $49.99 on three of my family’s Android tracfones. Unfortunately, my daughter has an ifone w/ tracfone service. The 49.99 option is not available for iphones on line or through their tech services. It’s just tracfone’s way of screwing ifone users. I’m very disappointed. I’m going to look into switching all my family’s phone to other carriers as their minutes expire.
I lost the one year year service days option on three different BYOP phones. Two were iPhones, one Android. Some of my readers with Tracfone iPhones say they still have the option. While I am really disappointed they removed the option. I don’t agree with you that tracfone is screwing iPhone users, or any customers. They have the right to offer whatever service plans they choose. That said, as consumers we all have the option to take our business elsewhere. You may find that you can find a better deal with a multi-line family plan. Do you know which Tracfone towers you are all using?
Same as the others, we have a ton of minutes, texts, and data left but just needed another year of service. Thanks for this excellent tip where I just purchased the 1,000 texts and got a service add-on option. I then deleted the 1,000 texts from the cart and got my service extended for another year for $50 plus state tax.
Thanks for this great tip.
Glad you were able to still get that add-on, the option is no longer available for many of us…
Tracfone Discontinued $50 One Year Service Days Add On
Thanks so much! This worked for me too. Purchased the $5 texts, added the $49.95 plan for 365 service days, then deleted the texts. Worked just fine; now updated to one more year service time. Great!! (Tracfone is being less than honest in not showing this as a straight stand-alone option.)
This worked great! I chose $5.00 text only minutes, was offered 365 days for $49.99 and was able to use a tracfone promo code for additional 1000 text when purchasing $5.00 text. So – 2000 text plus 365 days for $58.89. Thanks so much!
Hi Linda,
That’s great. for many of us using bring your own smartphones, they recently removed this option. Glad to hear it was still available for you.
If you are interested see Tracfone Discontinued $50 One Year Service Days Add On
I was having trouble getting my payment to process using Chrome, so I logged in with Internet Explorer, added the 365 Service Day package (49.99 plus tax), entered my info and it went through on the first try. I need to make a mental note of that for next year… The 365 Service Days option (without buying airtime) is ONLY available when you look at service plans for Basic Phones, it is not listed under Smartphone Plans. However, it will let you purchase it and it does add one year of service time. Great deal! Then you can purchase extra data, texts or talk as you need it…
Hi Glenda,
I added one in September 2018 but as of January 2019 the option is no longer available in the app or on tracfone.com. See Tracfone Discontinued $50 One Year Service Days Add On
Tracfone has made it impossible to get this offer, I have tried over and over again to get it, TracFone Chat says I can add the service days only for $49.99 by calling Customer service. Customer service says it is NOT available. First you have to buy a card with minutes, which I did, That makes me eligible to add on service days for $49.99 without paying for extra minutes that I do NOT need. Tracfone has some business practices that I feel are deceptive. I’m sorry I stuck with this company. I’ve been a regular customer for over 15 years! So disappointed!! Tracfone get your act together!!!!!
Hmm..
I don’t see the offer on tracfone.com. Perhaps they don’t offer it anymore. I have a couple of videos that show how to add this to your order online but the option is gone. See Expensive Phone – Cheap Cell Service
If you really want it, check out your local retail store that sells tracfone refill cards. If you can buy one in the store, you should still be able to add it to your account.
I’ll have to look into this. While I’d be disappointed if they discontinued the one year add-on, they have every right to do so. That said, the online chat and phone support team should be able to just clearly tell you its no longer available.
If you dont need minutes/data/texts because you have so many already, add a refill option to your cart. Then go to your cart, select the 365-day airtime only plan for $49.99. Then, if you scroll up to your order, click the trashcan next to the refill plan. And, wala… only have the 365-day service days only option in your cart 🙂
Thanks for the tip Amy. I’ll try this out.
Does this work for smart phone plans? It is exactly what I need, but I do not see any options for “add service days only” at check out. 🙁 Please advise!
Yes. it works. when I add a $15 plan to my cart the 365 Extra Service Days $49.99 option is under MORE FOR YOUR PHONE. If you don’t need the service plan, you can then remove it from the cart after adding the service days.
As you say, I only found this offer as an option at checkout when I went to add a refill card. I also found that I could cancel the purchase of the refill card during checkout and still buy the 365 day service plan for $50; a good deal for me since I have rolled over more air time than I ever purchased on a single card and over 1.2 GB of data.
Hey Mitch,
Cool, nice find. Thanks for sharing that.
thanks for posting!! just bought sim and plan and will add as soon as I set up my phone!! happy to hear that the year service plan is still being offered!!
cool..