My sister wants to buy me a new iPhone 14 for my birthday it only supports esim.

Just setup on Safelink a newer iPhone that only supports eSIMs. Friend has an existing Safelink service plan and number associated with a physical SIM phone. Safelink customer service initially said using an eSIM couldn't be done. Then when I asked to speak with a supervisor about why it couldn't be done. The rep put me on a long hold and then came back and began the process of creating an "eSIM" for the replacement iPhone. They needed the replacement phone's IMEI. So you definitely need both the existing Safelink phone and replacement phone with you when you call in.

I certainly got the sense from Safelink that they felt an eSIM iPhone was too extravagant for a Safelink subscriber. It's unfortunate this, corporate, shaming bias ignores the very real human nature of gift-giving. And that people do gift-give items they value to others who may not have.

Best of luck to those who also want to use their Safelink subscription with eSIM only iPhones! It certainly can be done.

Hello Everyone! Just wanted to share my experience on how I got my mother’s Safelink ACP service activated on an iPhone 14 she was gifted by her children.

Safelink uses Tracfone branded service (not Straight Talk, Simple Mobile, Total, Net10 etc., even though they are all the same company).

I wanted service on her iPhone 14 since she had a crappy TCL phone beforehand and wanted her to have the ability to use iMessage and FaceTime to communicate better with her kids and grandchildren.

I initially tried going into Tracfone’s website, under “Activate” , “Keep Your Own Phone” and clicking on “I want to keep my number” like I normally did with previous phones/SIM cards.

However, it kept on giving me a strange error that said “You’re number is currently inactive, please try activating your service before transferring your number”. I tried calling customer service and to no surprise they were not helpful at all. They told me that Safelink does not support their “eSIM program”.

What I decided to do was activate the iPhone 14 with Tracfone’s $15 unlimited talk and text plan ($10 if you choose Autopay) with a new number then proceeded to calling the Safelink enrollment team at 1-800-378-1684 and telling them to move her enrollment ID to the new number. I did not mention her old phone number at all, only the new phone number assigned by Tracfone and her Safelink enrollment ID. (If you do give them your current Safelink number, they will try to do a number transfer and will tell you the same thing about their eSIM program and how it will not work).

I was placed on hold for about 5 minutes and to my surprise, the rep tells me he has successfully attached the enrollment ID to the new Tracfone number with the eSIM! He told me that he was going to try and get the plan changed but if he could not, I would have to wait until the next month to see the benefits.

As another surprise, after a few hours, I texted the word “Balance” to 611-611 and received a message stating that the service end date was in 2024 and that the phone had unlimited data. So he was able to get the plan updated with her ACP benefits!

YMMV on this but I am glad that I was able to get this done. Again, I am sharing this in case anyone else wants to give it a try.