Pay As You Go cell phones??

[just_lily]

I am in Canada, so that is going to make a huge difference from you lucky Americans with more than three choices in cell phone companies.

My contract with Rogers is coming due in the next month or two (I have to call and find out the exact date) and I am planning on switching to a pay as you go phone.

I am one of those people that literally never use my phone. My DF and I have a family plan where we share something like 35 minutes a month, and we never come close. I don't text (must be too old or something). I do want to continue having a phone for emergencies though - it certainly came in handy when we had to call a tow truck after DF drove my car into a ditch while on vacation last year, for instance.

So that leads me to Pay As You Go, and I want the best deal. I don't want to spend a lot on the initial purchase of a phone, and I certainly don't need anything fancy.

I also want something where it isn't a big PITA in order to purchase new minutes. If I could buy the card in the grocery store or something that would be ideal.

And of course I want the cheapest rate. Are there fees other than the per minute charges? Monthly dings or something?

I've always had a contract, so pay as you go is all new to me. Advice appreciated!!

I'm in Alberta if that makes any difference.

Thanks!!

[just_lily]

[minsca]

I'd love to know the answer to this question too. As my contract with Telus runs out the end of March. And I'm thinking of switching to a pay-as-you go phone too, and I'm also in Alberta.
Hopefully some wise guru knows the answer.

[weliveintheforest]

You can just keep your rogers phone but switch to a pay as you go plan. Fido and Rogers phones are interchangeable, but use different sim cards.
I have fido, and I can buy minutes at pretty much any gas station and some grocery stores I think.

With the tiny amount you would be using it, you are pretty much going to pay 30 cents a minute no matter who you go with.

If you need/want a new phone, 7 Eleven often has a deal where you get 100$ worth of airtime free with the phone, but I think you would have to get a new number (not sure.)

If I were to buy a different phone and switch providers, I would probably go with Virgin because they have plans that would suit me better than my current one.

[just_lily]

Originally Posted by weliveintheforest

You can just keep your rogers phone but switch to a pay as you go plan. Fido and Rogers phones are interchangeable, but use different sim cards.
I have fido, and I can buy minutes at pretty much any gas station and some grocery stores I think.

Really? I don't have any problems with keeping my current phone. It is a KRAZR and still quite nice. How do I go about switching it over to pay as you go? Just call them?

[CarrieMF]

yup call them or go into a rogers store.

We just switch from rogers pay as you go as we're using the phones for more than we were. Plus rogers doesn't work everywhere we needed it to.

We had the rogers pay as you go for 7 years, maybe longer. I bought cards at superstore/walmart or used my cc. You can buy as little as $10. They don't roll over or anything like that & we seemed to run out of month before we ran out of minutes unless we were travelling.lol

We have gone as long as 6 months without using the phone or adding minutes to it & them not cancelling our service.

[yeahwhat]

We have a president's choice phone. 20c per minute. The $25 card lasts 60 days and you carry over minutes as long as you top up before the most recent ones expire. You get a $10 start up credit when you buy a phone. I bought dh's phone a couple of years ago. The phone was $50, and with the offers of the time, I got the $10 start up, $10 discount on the phone, and a $10 gift card for the grocery store.

[SophieAnn]

You can definitely keep your phone and switch it to pay-as-you-go.

When my Fido contract ran out, I called about switching to pay-as-you-go. It was going to cost $60 to make the switch, so I asked what my other options would be. I was literally talking about 2 minutes per month ("emergencies" only). They gave me an option of a no minutes plan (this is not an advertised plan). I pay $10 per month including all service fees, system access fees, etc. to keep my phone active with zero minutes. Then any minutes I use are charged at something like 30 cents per minute.

I never ended up switching to pay-as-you-go. I suppose in the long-run it might have been cheaper, but this is easier.

Did you know in Canada we have the something like the most expensive cellphone service rates in the developed world? It's ridiculous. I should just cancel the darn thing altogether. Grr.

[just_lily]

So according to their website, in order to pay by the minute on Rogers it is 40cents per. Holy crow! PC Mobile is only 20 cents, so that is starting to look appealing. It'll probably be better in the long run if I just shell out $50 now for a PC Mobile phone and then pay half of the operating costs. I don't care about keeping my existing number - nobody knows it anyway (and I like it that way!).

[josybear]

i was looking into this a year ago and made a huge spreadsheet working out what's the best deal. president's choice and 7-11 are almost even, but if you get the 100$ of free airtime with 7-11 it's cheaper. what you want to look for is how long until minutes expire. i forget which, but one of those two lets you keep minutes for a year, so you could theoretically buy 5$ in minutes and have that phone cost you 5$ for a year.