Combining tracfone airtime to a new phone help!

a) I currently have a verizon tracfone sim from a hsn deal with several thousand mins/texts and gb on it and something like 6 months left.
b) I also have a new phone with its own sim that is a total wireless phone.
c) I also have an annual plan airtime card from ebay with the 1200 mins/1200 texts/3gb.
d) If needed I also have plenty of tracfone sims lying around.

Goal is to add the annual plan and old minutes to the new total wireless phone and sim and eventually get it unlocked after 12 months. I figured I couldn't just add all the airtime to the old sim and put it in the new phone as that wouldn't let me get the new phone unlocked.

Can someone who knows tracfone help me with the steps. I don't want to mess it up. I thought it would require:

  1. Activating b) using the sim that came with it using the annual plan card in c).

  2. Then contacting customer service to note down the balances for a)

  3. Ask them to transfer over the service time and minutes/texts/data from a) to my new sim b).

Does that sound right??? Or do I need to get them to reprovision the phone to tracfone somewhere in the steps?

Thank you!

Can't you just put the active Tracfone sim in the TW phone? I was lucky enough to get one of the Tracfone Moto G Power phones that sold on Amazon on Oct 30 for $54.75. I put my active Net 10 Verizon sim and it worked plug and play. It came with a Verizon Tracfone sim but I just set that aside.

Yes it would work but I want to make sure I can also unlock the phone. I read somewhere you need to use the original sim else the system won't recognise the 12 months of use.

Unlocking it going to be the problem in your scenario.
My current understanding is that Tracfone will only unlock a phone that has had a years worth of airtime purchased for that phone. Your Total Wireless phone isn't going to have airtime purchased for it under any reasonable scenario. All the airtime you have accumulated, or waiting to be activated, is/was purchased for other phones.

This is purely gathered from user reports, and the tracfone 'gurus' on a couple of forums, and not from any documentation, or information I've seen directly attributed to a Tracfone representative. If your primary goal is unlocking that Total Wireless phone, you should reach out to Tracfone to see if you can get an answer on how it would qualify for unlocking.

{EDIT TO CORRECT: I was thinking about the way Tracfone packages their annual-plan-with-SIM currently, where the SIM is preloaded with the airtime. If your purchase is from the period where they shipped a SIM plus an separate refill card, you should be able to accomplish your goal.]

a) I currently have a verizon tracfone sim from a hsn deal with several thousand mins/texts and gb on it and something like 6 months left.
b) I also have a new phone with its own sim that is a total wireless phone.
It should not be a problem to rebrand this phone as a Tracfone, via customer service. If you only use via SIM-swapping an already active SIM into it, it will never qualify for unlocking.

c) I also have an annual plan airtime card from ebay with the 1200 mins/1200 texts/3gb.
Is this a pre-loaded SIM? If so, it won't help you unlock anything, because it's defacto for a BYOD (non-Tracfone-branded) phone. I believe Tracfone tracks unlocking via the SIM card #. If it's from the period when Tracfone shipped a SIM & a traditional refill card, I think you're golden.

d) If needed I also have plenty of tracfone sims lying around.
Never use a BYOD SIM kit to activate a phone that you hope to unlock. Trac maintains 2 separate databases of SIM numbers, and you can't unlock if using a BYOD SIM. If Tracfone service says you need a new SIM, have them send you one

Goal is to add the annual plan and old minutes to the new total wireless phone and sim and eventually get it unlocked after 12 months. I figured I couldn't just add all the airtime to the old sim and put it in the new phone as that wouldn't let me get the new phone unlocked.
I agree.

Can someone who knows tracfone help me with the steps. I don't want to mess it up. I thought it would require:

  1. Activating b) using the sim that came with it using the annual plan card in c).

  2. Then contacting customer service to note down the balances for a)

  3. Ask them to transfer over the service time and minutes/texts/data from a) to my new sim b).

Does that sound right??? Or do I need to get them to reprovision the phone to tracfone somewhere in the steps?

IF your Ebay annual plan has a separate refill card (and isn't just a pre-loaded SIM), I would do this sequence, since it has the fewest chances of failure..

  1. contact customer service to have the Total phone rebranded as a Tracfone. You should be able to use the same SIM that came in it, if it hasn't been activated before (or if it's a Verizon SIM, it can be reused.).
    Transfer your existing line to the Total phone, after confirming your existing units (which they now call 'benefits') in the same chat conversation.

  2. If your ebay purchase includes a separate refill card, add the refill card after transferring to the Total phone, so that it will be credited as an airtime purchase for the Total phone. (Wait a few days.)

  3. Wait a year, cross your fingers, apply for unlock.(Tracfone has been pretty good about this for the last year or 2, though.)

Thanks for the detailed steps KentE. Yes it is a refill card not a preloaded sim so looks like I may be in luck.

And thanks sblake5 for the replies. I appreciate you trying to help.

Well, it wasn't much (if any) help but my needs are different. I don't need to unlock the phone so it works fine for me the way it is. I wonder what (if any) effect Verizon's acquisition of Tracfone will have on any of this in the future.

I wonder what (if any) effect Verizon's acquisition of Tracfone will have on any of this in the future.
[/quote]
(Unlocking)...
Purely based on a recent experience with T Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint.... I had to prove to Sprint with a receipt that I personally purchased the phone before they would unlock it and I could use it on T Mobile.

My advice: Too ambitious. Don't even try it.

Based on: Seven years of experience managing Tracfone and sister company plans for many family members.

Why: Your goal is too ambitious. Tracfone customer service reps and Chat reps are not equipped to handle re-branding + transfer/combine operations. They WILL mess things up, no matter how well you follow protocol.

There is no doubt that sometimes Tracfone reps screw things up, and there is no doubt that once screwed up, it's a royal pain to get straightened out. If a couple of attempts to get it straightened out via regular customer service don't work, be prepared to file complaints via FCC and BBB-- this will get you a contact at Tracfone that is motivated to fix it, and access to tools to do so. (I've been there, and had to do that a time or two.)

I've come to the conclusion that the most successful route is to break the steps down to tasks that should be within the capabilities of the regular CSRs, avoid as much complication as possible, and keep good documentation. Don't try to do multiple steps at once, and try to pick a route that has the fewest needed steps. Give the CSR every bit of the information needed to complete a single step, and none of the information about what your next step might be. Verify that each step worked as it should before moving to the next stage.

In my experience, combine/merge of 2 Tracfone lines is the most prone to failure, especially if the 2 lines are on different networks. I try to avoid it when possible, and make sure I have another working phone available during the process. The issue is that there is a big difference in Tracfone terminology between 'transfer' and 'merge'. 'Transfer' will move the balances from one from one line to another line, and discard the balances from the abandoned line. 'Combine/merge' should add the balances together into a single line. It seems like reps do this wrong as often as they do it right.

All of this reminds me that I am not too optimistic about unlocking anything with Tracfone. I have a Stylo 4 that will be in service for an entire year in March. It came with the service so depending on how you look at it, it was purchased service being that the bundled phone cost more than the phone itself. Anyway, time will tell if they unlock it after the end of the year (some swear they have accomplished this while others don't). I do plan on purchasing at least a month refill being that I plan to use the website to unlock it and not deal with customer service. Worst case, it will just stay a Tracfone - used them for years and don't foresee stopping unless Verizon blows this up.

Edit:
If anyone here has first had successful unlocking experience after having the phone active for a year with bundled time (not purchased separately), would love to hear how you got it done. After all, it would be nice to have it unlocked for flexibility.

From my own personal experience with Total Wireless/Tracfone.....I bought an IPhone 7 Plus from Total Wireless, called Tracfone got it rebranded to Tracfone, new sim sent to me, merged minutes easy peasey.....now here’s where it all goes sideways....the Unlocking of the phone....I was on autopay for 13 months, not a byod plan, they would not unlock, I’m sure I could have filed a complaint instead I bought a R-Sim and did a soft unlock.

We had 2 Tracfone lines with an accumulated amount of service days remaining. We transferred both lines to bundled phone+plan purchased via Tracfone's Ebay store. We added no additional time or refill cards of any type beyond the bundled service that came with the phones. I submitted unlock requests via the online Unlocking Portal for both within a few days of the one-year anniversary, and both were unlocked without issue.

In my case, both phones were still active & running on the prior service days when I submitted for the unlock. I've also read references like you mention-- that one needs to add a 13th month. This was not true in my case, and the Tracfone Unlocking policy does not seem to indicate that requirement. (Specifically, there is a provision that allows the phone to be unlocked within 60 days of line termination if the use requirement has been met. So, if one is only interested in unlocking, it should be possible that way, too.)

FWIW, I bought our bundled phones on an Ebay special, and probably paid less for them than the phone without service-- so at least in my case the cost didn't seem a factor. (I paid $42.88 each for the phone+ plan.)

I believe Tracfone is being pretty circumspect about unlocking, since they've already been placed under a consent decree one time.

If you believe you've met the requirements for unlocking, and are denied, I'd immediately file an FCC complaint. I don't think Tracfone is in any rush to go down the consent decree road again.

Thanks for this report. I would have expected that the rebranding would have made the phone eligible for Tracfone unlocking, since you did it 'by the book'. I haven't ever had a phone rebranded.

I have another phone I'd like to unlock that is a tracfone so may just do that and skip the rebranding step. Thanks everyone.