Here's how to get free tracfone minutes when you buy, activate or port a phone or buy airtime minutes.
You will get about 20 minutes for
activating any Tracfone that is not a smartphone. You can use these minutes to make sure your phone is working
by making a one or two short calls and sending a couple of text
messages. For the other phones, you are protected by their guarantee.
Once you're good to go, you can add your airtime PIN. Sometimes you can get an extra airtime card by shopping online for . . .
Tracfone has run various promotions online for refurbished phones and free airtime cards. This often lets you get the phone for the cost of the airtime or vice versa.
If you want to budget for the year, choose a phone and 1-year card deal. If you want it just for a short time, then choose a double minutes phone and 60-minute card deal.
Before you activate your airtime you should look for any current . . .
You can use a Tracfone promo code to get some bonus minutes when you buy and add airtime. For the one-year cards, it makes the difference between a so-so deal and a good deal as long as you have a double-minutes-for-life phone.
You can get 100 free Tracfone minutes for porting your existing numbers from another service to them and buying a 1-year airtime card or double-minute card. Unfortunately, I didn't take advantage of this when I dumped my old cell phone and got a Tracfone with a different number.
The best, long-term way to get extra minutes for your cell phone is to buy a triple minutes handset. For every airtime card you buy, you get triple the number of minutes. Some handset only offer double minutes. With a 3X phone, you get 50 percent more minutes per airtime purchase.