i have an ATT prepaid $.35 a minute account with $200 in it which is set to expire in may, 2023 ... what are my options ?

@bjmsam 

Either will work.  Your choice

bjmsam ... if you have almost $250 in your account and your balance is due to expire, isn't going on auto-pay and adding $25 every 90 days the cheapest way to go ? why would you go from a plan that effectively costs you about $8 a month to keep "alive" to one that costs you $30 a month ? ... also, are you saying that you CAN use your $250 account balance to pay that $30 a month fee ? so ATT let's you use that money to fund another plan ($30 a month) but DOESN'T let you use that money to pay for extending your current $.35 a minute plan 90 days at a time for $25 ... do i have that right ??

formerlyknownas ... you write above "Refills will deduct from your balance until your expiration date or balance is insufficient to refill. " ... i don't believe this is accurate ... earlier you said that you can not use your account balance to pay for extending one's expiration date ... ($25 for 90 days or $100 for 1 year)

@duderunner Yes, continuing is cheapest as long as data usage averages less than 1GB / month.

$30 every month is $360 / year.  Free calls, free texts, and 5GB / month of high-speed data.

$25 every 90 days is $100 / year.  Adding 250MB of data costs $5.  Ignoring the additional cost of calls (35¢ / minute) and messages (20¢ / text):

$360 - $100 = $260 / $5 = 52 AddOns x 250MB = 13,000MB / 12 = 1,083MB / month

I can use my $250 balance to pay the $30 / month fees, which would take 8 months of refills to draw down.  To prevent it from expiring sooner, I must either keep adding $25 for 3 months or add $100 for 12 months.  Either way, ignoring taxes:

$250 balance + $100 to extend = $350 which would cover almost a year, so it works out perfectly for me.

$200 balance + $100 to extend = $300 which would cover ten months, so it would work out well for you, too.

But again, if you're not using much or any data, then stick with the old plan, which is much cheaper and cannot be reinstated once changed.

@bjmsam thanks ... i don't use data on my phone ... it's rarely used for voice or text in emergencies and if i do need to access the internet i would use wifi ... so i guess i should stick with adding $25 every 90 days unless someone has a better solution ... i only wish ATT would let you use your balance in the account to pay for extending the expiration date ... any other ideas, please let me know ... thanks

Note that once you change away from the PPU plan you can't change back.  

@kevink by PPU do you mean pay per use ? ie, the $.35 a minute plan ? ... it used to be $.10 a minute and ATT changed it without notifying anyone ... is the plan even available and open any more for new subscribers ?

is the plan even available and open any more for new subscribers ?

No, which is why he said "once you change away from the PPU plan you can't change back."  

Apparently having a pay-per-use plan didn't align with AT&T's financial goals and they decided to do away with it.  For those sticking it out, they raised the rate to be more in keeping with other plans.

@duderunner

AT&T did notify, as many posted their notifications.  If your email isn't current, or not checked, you might miss it.  Or it might have wound up in spam 

thanks everyone ... sounds like my best bet is to set up auto-pay on may 17th (1 day before my account balance of about $200 expires) and pay $25 every 90 days to keep my phone "alive" ... ! i notice i can do this on-line but i'll probably call the att wireless folk to make sure i get it right ... the on-line tool is really weak as it doesn't tell you the $25 extends your expiration date 90 days ... this is all it shows you:

AutoPay Summary

AutoPay Amount

$25.00

AutoPay Amount Before Tax 

$25.00

Payment Due Now Before Tax      

$25.00