Company Overview

Cricket Prepaid, along with Jump Mobile, is a subsidiary wireless service provider for Leap Wireless. Cricket Prepaid offers a more affordable service to customers with their flat rates and unlimited access to their services. Though only available in 21 states, the company is growing and expanding fast.

Prepaid Plans

Cricket Prepaid comes in six monthly plans for $30, $35, $40, $45, $50 and $60. Most of the plans have unlimited access to various features like anytime minutes, messages, long distance, calling features and web access. These features will be discussed later.

Pros and Cons
Cricket Prepaid can attract the interest of some customers by offering many unlimited services like airtime, messages and web access. However, it only applies within the coverage area which has rather small coverage at present.  This may not be useful for many customers. Customers sending or making calls outside the coverage area may not like the additional fees. Cricket Prepaid also charges additional fees like activation and service fees for payments; other companies generally waive these.

Features

Minutes

All plans under Cricket Prepaid have unlimited airtime minutes.

Data

Cricket Prepaid plans for $ 45, $50 and $60 have unlimited web access as part of the plan. For the other plans, additional $5 per month will be charge for unlimited web access.

Text and picture

Except for the $30 and $35 Cricket Prepaid plans, text and picture messages are unlimited. Add-on of $5 per month shall be made for the $30 and $35 plans to enjoy unlimited text messages. Aside from unlimited text and picture messages in the US, prepaid plans $45, $50 and $60 can also send unlimited text messages from Mexico. For other countries, add on of $5 per month for international messages.

 

International

Cricket Prepaid charges 10 cents per minute but rates differ from one country to the other. It is advisable to contact the company’s customer service to identify the corresponding rate for the country a subscriber is planning to make a call.

Calling Features

Features include caller ID, voicemail, call waiting, call forwarding and three-way calling. All plans have unlimited caller ID, other calling features except for the $45, $50 and $60 a month plan have unlimited service. Additional fees and rates are charged for the other plans.

Long distance

Except for the $30 per month plan, Cricket Prepaid offers unlimited airtime for long distance including calls to Hawaii, Puerto Rica and Canada. The subscriber must also be within the coverage area upon making and receiving a call to take advantage of this unlimited service.

911

Yes

Payment Options

There are many ways to pay for Cricket Prepaid plans. Subscribers can arrange an automatic charge from their credit or debit card, pay via mail using money order or check or pay online. Paying through phone and in retail stores are also accepted though they collect some service fees. Phone payments require $2 for the service while stores will charge additional $3.

Roaming charge

All plans for Cricket Prepaid will incur a fee of 39 cents per minute for roaming. The company also offers bundle packages for roaming that can go as low as 13 cents per minute. Higher plans have 30 free roaming minutes but exceeding minutes will be charged.

Activation fee

Cricket Prepaid charges $15 to activate new accounts.

Minute expiration rules

Since, airtime minutes are unlimited for all Cricket Prepaid plans there is no expiration. As long as the account is active, subscribers can continue using unlimited airtime. The $5 worth of minutes from the activation fee must be consumed within 30 days.

 

Customer Service

Subscribers encountering any problems with their Cricket Prepaid plans can call a toll-free number for assistance.

Phones

Prepaid phones available for Cricket Prepaid plans can be viewed at: http://www.mycricket.com/cricketphones/