This article was submitted by WeChat reader Yisi Liu, and edited by KUKU. 本文来自微信读者意识刘投稿，由 KUKU 整理编辑，本文合作者为 BY。欢迎大家向我们投稿，投稿请联系 ymlulu at outlook.com
Use the blog's referral link:
"2026.3 update" There is now a $10/month plan, and you can buy 3 months.
Don't forget to stack the referral purchase
"2024.7 update" Mint sent out a mass email announcing that starting next month, all plans will come with 3GB of Canada data for free, which is great for people who need to travel to Canada or spend a long time in Canada using a U.S. SIM. You can check data usage in the app. Mint already includes unlimited calls and texts to Canada. In other words, you effectively get an extra U.S. phone line with 3GB of data for use in Canada.
"2023.11 update" Mint is about to change its roaming plans and will charge by 1 day, 3 days, or 7 days. Overall, it looks pretty good. The 7-day unlimited data plan is actually a very good value. For U.S. users overseas who only rely on Wi-Fi Calling to send and receive texts, this change also has no impact. Mint Mobile is very suitable for use after returning to China, and even for long-term use in China (sometimes Wi-Fi Calling needs a DNS setting on the phone, otherwise it won't turn on).
[collapse title= "→→Mint 已过期的更新←←"]
"2022.4 update" Mint Mobile got even stronger, with U.S. domestic data increased across the board for free, making it even better value! Its $15 plan, with 5GB of data, became a great-value plan.
- 4GB plan -> 5GB
- 10GB plan -> 15GB
- 15GB plan -> 20GB
"2022.3 update" Mint's classic referral offer is back. The referred person needs to port from AT&T or Verizon, and the referrer can get a $100 account credit. It's unclear whether other MVNOs work; you can try it. This promotion, like the buy-three-get-three deal, runs through March 31, 2023.
"2022.10 update" The classic AMEX offer, $90-$45, is back, which is basically half-price service. If you have multiple cards, remember to use MaxRewards to add them all in one place. Both opening an account and topping up your balance can trigger the offer. Mint Mobile is worth holding long term. H/T: Yisi Liu
"2022.9 update" The new referral system is now officially live. Note that Mint forbids VPN logins, and normal IPs (including China IPs) can log in and activate.
"2021.4 update" Added eSIM activation and usage details; see eSIM activation and use for more.
"2021.1 update 4" Mint started supporting eSIM on January 16, 2021, currently limited to iOS. The classic example is the iPhone SE2 that everyone has been using, see Reddit. H/T: reader ttlbyte
"2021.1 update 3" Mint sent users an email saying that starting in February, the total data allowance for each plan would be increased for free, as follows:
- 3GB plan -> 4GB
- 8GB plan -> 10GB
- 12GB plan -> 15GB
For new users buying 3 months at a time or buying a year, the lowest tier is now $15/month, and 4GB of data is still pretty good. Because of the changes, there may still be a promotion at the end of the month, and I'm looking forward to buy-one-get-one coming back. Also, if you still haven't received the reward from the previous buy-one-get-one deal, remember to ask Chat support to handle it manually. In theory, it should show up 15 days after opening the account. I didn't receive mine, and I had customer service manually add a $75 credit.
"2021.1 update 2" The buy-one-get-one promotion has ended for now.
"2021.1 update" KUKU and BY fully updated this article. Mint is a pretty good secondary line with potential, and it supports use outside the U.S. (including China). The current offer lets you buy a 6-month plan (3GB/month + unlimited text and talk) for $25, plus $15 in account credit. You can pay with PayPal at checkout, and you may also want to use the $30 credit from the PayPal AMEX Platinum card.
[Expired] Recently, a broadly targeted AMEX offer popped up that almost everyone seems to have: spend $90 or more with Mint Mobile and get $45 back. I'm sure many people have never heard of Mint Mobile (it's not the same company as the other Mint account-management service), and you probably already have other plans on hand. But after doing the math, Mint Mobile can actually be a service that pays you back, and below is a summary of the money-making tricks.
AMEX offer
You only need to make a single purchase of $90 on mintmobile.com to get $45 back (opening an account and paying a bill both count). It is recommended to add this AMEX offer to your AMEX Platinum card.
Of course, if you don't want the hassle, but you have multiple AMEX accounts, for example 2 AMEX accounts, you can skip self-referring and instead choose to top up your wallet balance, such as $90 * 2 = $180 (enough for a year of the 3GB plan). After the first plan ends (after 3 months), choose change plan to the 12-month 3GB plan. After paying the small amount of tax, you would actually spend $180 - $45 * 2 + $20 (tax) = $110, or less than $10 per month on average!
The trick introduced here is that the official site does not have a direct option to add $90, but you can use
to add $90 directly to your wallet balance. This can also trigger both the AMEX offer and the wireless credit at the same time (make sure to pay in 2-month installments before it expires), which means the $110 above can be reduced by another $20 * 2 = $70. $70 for a year! Can it get any more generous than this?!
In short, happy money-making, everyone!
[/collapse]
Contents [Hide]
About Mint Mobile
First of all, Mint Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator (one of the larger ones), and its underlying network comes from T-Mobile. In Los Angeles, I basically haven't run into any signal issues. MVNOs often try to attract customers with strong signup, port-in, and referral deals. In many cases, you can also combine them with cashback sites, and with a strong AMEX offer on top, you can even come out ahead with just a little effort. Mint's basic plans are shown below. In summary, the plans come in 3-, 6-, and 12-month terms, and the longer the term, the lower the monthly cost. There are also different data tiers; the most basic is 3GB, the highest is unlimited data, and talk and text are both unlimited. Under normal circumstances, the pricing table is as follows:
For new customers, there is a new-customer-only promotion: it is a three-month plan, so to net a profit you also need to take advantage of the first three months of the promo period. If you want to keep it long term, when you renew after three months, calculate it at the regular rates in the table above:
One thing to note, though: Mint Mobile has no signal anywhere in Alaska. It does have signal in Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
How to Maximize Cashback
You need to stack the following offers:
Plan Promo
[Expired] The best offer right now is buy 1 get 1 free. If you buy a three-month plan, you get an extra three months for free. According to the bot customer service description, the extra three months will be credited to your account 72 hours after the SIM card is activated.
Your 3 free months credit will be added to your account within 72 hours of activation. You can view your credit in your account under Transaction History.
Signup Bonus
Referral bonus: If you have never signed up for Mint Mobile before, you can use the referral link below to open an account. The base bonus is $15 for each side (applied as a renewal credit, and can only be used toward the three-month renewal plan), shown in the account as wallet balance. Welcome to use the blog's referral link:
The signup bonus is given based on the number of SIM kits. If you buy two SIM kits at once, the bonus you receive will be $15 x 2 = $30. After activation, you will receive a bonus notification email
Bank Funding Promo
AMEX offers, Chase offers, and BofA promotions often have Mint funding offers. For example, AMEX's recurring $90-$45 deal each year is very worth considering. If there are any new offers, we will update this article right away.
Funding supports single top-ups of $5, $10, or $20, and the maximum top-up seems to be $180.
There is no direct $90 top-up option on the official site, but you can do it through the following link:
Signup Process
It is especially important to coordinate the referral bonus and cashback site cashback properly. Next, I'll demonstrate the signup process (using Chrome as an example):
- In the Chrome browser, first open the Mint Mobile referral link above: Mint Mobile referral link. You should see the referral bonus prompt below. If you don't see it, clear your cookies and click the referral link a few more times.
- After opening it, do not close it. Open a new tab instead
- Then go to Mint Mobile on the cashback site:
https://www.topcashback.com/mint-sim/
https://www.rebatesme.com/zh/stores/mintmobile
https://givingassistant.org/coupon-codes/mintmobile.com
Note: after opening it, the newly opened page should still show the words “Join your friend on Mint and get $15 applied to your account,” so that both the referral bonus and the cashback site bonus are triggered at the same time.
- Click the "shop now" button on the right:
- Select a plan based on your needs. For most people, the $15/month plan is enough if you buy three months (3 months free, usable for 6 months)
- Checkout supports both card payment and PayPal. You can consider using the AMEX Platinum PayPal $30 credit, see here
- After the order is placed, shipping is very fast, usually arriving in three days
SIM Card Activation
According to the kit instructions I received, you need to activate it within about 2 months and 10 days after receiving the card, otherwise the SIM will expire. Activation can be done through:
- App activation
- Web activation
Mint can also be activated outside the United States (including China, no tools needed). Activation only requires registering an account, and the SIM will get signal. If you are outside the United States, you need to enable roaming to get signal.
Cancel Auto-Renew
If you only want to net a profit from the three-month deal, remember to cancel auto-renew so you don't get charged back later. If you like it, you can also keep using this carrier.
Reward Status
After using the method above, using the lowest tier as an example, you will ultimately receive $15 in credit. It usually takes 3-7 business days to see the bonus. If you still haven't received the free plan after 15 days, contact customer service, and they will manually add $75 for you.
My total here also includes the $15 from being invited by a friend, plus the cost of the three-month plan manually credited by customer service, so the total is $90.
Using Mint in China
Mint is very suitable for long-term use in China. The key points are:
- Turn on roaming and add $5 is enough (can be enabled in the app or on the website)
- Enable Wi-Fi Calling (iPhone) or VoWiFi (Android) [see here]
- Once you get signal, immediately turn off cellular data
- Unfortunately, data used outside the US is charged separately at $0.2/MB. I personally recommend using Google Fi for data, which is cheaper
The author BY personally tested Mint in China with roaming enabled and got signal. With Wi-Fi Calling enabled, calls and texts to US numbers were not charged, but for some reason 4MB of data was charged, or $0.8. Maybe it was because I didn't turn off data right after landing and wasn't connected to Wi-Fi.
Below is the cost of using Mint in China when not using Wi-Fi Calling:
The charges are very high, so be sure to turn off cellular data and use Wi-Fi Calling only.
One thing to note: if you want to use Mint in China, you must add international roaming credit to your account, with a minimum of $5. Adding $5 is enough, because under normal circumstances you won't actually use this credit. You're only using the top-up step to make Mint get signal in China. If you don't add credit, it will only show No Service, and being connected to Wi-Fi won't help. I added the $5 to my account when I was in China with no service, and two minutes later the signal appeared automatically. If you still have no signal, turn Airplane Mode on and off, or restart the phone.
Mintmobile.com and the Mint app can both be opened directly in China without any extra steps.
eSIM Activation and Use
Mint supports eSIM, and the process is very simple. Brief steps:
- In the app, choose Replace SIM, then select eSIM
- Choose Use this device
- Then follow the prompts step by step to finish.
- Note: you can only switch eSIMs twice every 12 months; after that it's $3 each time, which is enough for most people. If you're outside the U.S., remember to turn off data roaming as soon as you activate the eSIM.
Cost summary
Basic cashback
Ignoring taxes and fees, using the lowest tier and the cheapest plan as an example:
- $45 purchase cost
- $20 cashback from the cashback site
- $15 referral credit
That works out to $25 for 6 months of 3GB data and unlimited talk and text, plus $15 in renewal credit, with use outside the U.S. supported. It's a great option for people returning to China for a short trip. You can also grab one during a recharge promotion and use it as a long-term secondary line.
Referral
2022.8 update Mint changed its referral program. You can now invite only 4 times a year. Depending on the plan your invitee signs up for, you can get different referral rewards, with the lowest tier being $45 in credit and the highest $90. That means you can earn up to $180-$360 in credit per year. The overall rewards are weaker than before. However, it's now easier to get the $180 credit reward, which is ideal for people who can talk a few friends into joining each year.
Invite four times is enough ($180 for the lowest plan). In the past you had to invite 10 people to max out the $480 credit. The official rollout doesn't seem to have started yet; we'll let everyone know once it does.
Mint gift
In the mail, along with the two SIM kits, you'll also receive a gift SIM kit (which lets the user try it for 7 days). Follow the activation instructions and activate it at https://my.mintmobile.com/activation.
Don't let those two SIMs go to waste—you can use them to sign up for Google Voice and Gmail. After you're done registering, remember to unlink the number.
Note: the gift SIM kit theoretically can't be used for number porting.
Conclusion
I personally think Mint is a pretty good secondary line with potential; various recharge promotions and referrals can let you keep it cheaply. The other two promising secondary lines are TracFone [see here] and Cricket [see here]. However, Mint is the only one that works in China (international roaming + Wi-Fi calling), so it's very suitable for people going back to China briefly or traveling abroad. If you're going back to China long term, and you don't think the price is high, you can also consider keeping it long term.