Virgin Mobile USA, the Sprint-owned prepaid cellular company, has three product lines: “Beyond Talk” (for smartphones and advanced feature phones), “Paylo” (for basic feature phones), and “Broadband2Go” (for mobile adapters and hotspots).
For some reason, Virgin has chosen to sell prepaid cards for each service. And the market for such cards – at least in the Charlotte area – is oddly segmented. For example, my local Walmart used to sell Beyond Talk cards next to other prepaid cellular cards from Boost Mobile, Net10 and Tracfone. But Walmart stopped carrying them for some reason, and now only sells Broadband2Go cards in the computer accessories section. Walgreen’s still has $25 or $50 Beyond Talk cards, while the CVS across the street only sells the “you choose” $10/$30/$50 Paylo cards. Lowe’s, across the street from CVS and next door to Walmart, sells Paylo cards in $10, $20, or $50 amounts.
So here’s the tip: it’s not a secret – in fact, it’s printed right on the front of the cards – but you can use any Virgin Mobile prepaid card to add funds to any Virgin Mobile account. If you have Beyond Talk, you can use a Paylo card. Or you could use a Beyond Talk card to add money to your Broadband2Go account. As I say, the front of the cards clearly states “adds money to any Virgin Mobile account”. But it wasn’t that long ago that I didn’t know there wasn’t a difference between them. I figured someone out there might not know either, and have the same question.