<p>My parents have had tmobile for several years. After buying the initial card, they pay $10 a year to renew, plus all their minutes rollover. It has worked great for them.</p>
<p>If they are AAA members, there is an ad I saw that had a phone with large numbers with limited minutes meant to be used for emergency purposes. I suspect AARP has something as well.</p>
<p>For the large numbers / buttons cell phones marketed to the elderly, perhaps you mean the Jitterbug? However, the service is expensive for what you get, compared to the better prepaid services.</p>
<p>I’ve been checking out the Jitterbug phone for my elderly mother.The phone itself seemed fine (although a bit expensive for the little use it would get). I had read some not-so-great reviews online of their customer service and unfortunately, it was true. The person I spoke with was arrogant and demeaning. Although you don’t have to lock into a contract, its very difficult to get them to stop billing you. After my experience, I would never recommend a Jitterbug. </p>
<p>We’re going to stick with a prepaid plan. Any advice for a simple phone with big numbers?</p>
<p>We have the T-Mobile pay as you go and it works fine for us. Same thing–$100 gets you more minutes than you need for a year and then you can just add and rollover and the network is very good most places. Just added a second better 3G phone so we can do interent when travelling, etc. That costs $1.50 a day to use out of your $100. We never text. Handy when we need it and cheap insurance when out and about.</p>
<p>We belong to AAA, and I assume they belong to AARP. Will check those out as well as all these ideas.</p>
<p>Wishing I had TMobile!</p>
<p>youdontsay, AARP has discounts with a place called Consumer Cellular. </p>
<p>[AARP</a> Cell Phone Plans from Consumer Cellular](<a href=“http://www.consumercellular.com/AARP]AARP”>http://www.consumercellular.com/AARP)</p>
<p>They have a monthly fee though so if they are looking for pre-paid it’s probably not the way to go. I do know they have “senior friendly phones” as options… I remember seeing that when I looked into it with my grandparents.</p>
<p>Actually, Verizon has a neat pre-paid program… and a great network.</p>
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<p>My wife’s phone is on the Verizon network - the prepaid plan is the same as the AT&T prepaid plans that the rest of our phones are on. They do have a few other prepaid plans that may be better depending on who and how much you call. The Verizon phone sometimes comes in handy where AT&T has poor coverage. Verizon tends to be better for coverage than AT&T around universities by our experience.</p>
<p>The downside to Verizon is that they nickel and dime you all over the place. If you want to get a picture out of your phone, you have to email it incurring a charge. On our AT&T phones, you just transfer it to your computer via BlueTooth. Verizon also had to issue some very large refunds to consumers recently as they were found to be overbilling for various crazy little things.</p>
<p>bc - i keep a sd card in my phone and then just put it in my computer when I need to get pictures off it… not sure if your phones have that or not but it might be an option.</p>