I messed up my account...   I tried to remove an inactive phone from my account...  you can not remove the one marked as the account "owner"...  which was my now inactive original phone which I don't even have anymore.  If I had switched the stupid little check box first I would have been fine...  but I didn't see it until too late.
It would not let me reregister the new & active phone to the account...
I tried Trac's help numbers & just went round & round with automated systems.   Finally, I used the  TracFone email contact (to my dead end hobby account)...  I ended up checking the problem type as "other", & wrote out the issue in the box.   I got a response that the problem needed to be done over the phone...  and a different 888 number.   A couple of menu options & I had a live CS representative.  YES!!  
I had to answer the security questions.  I had to give the old SN (he waited while I brought up my TF acct to get the number & the new SN and it is fixed.

I was ready to start looking at other phones yesterday.  Everything is golden today.  
Just sharing...
skb

I have one from Virgin Mobile and, if you are inactive for a while and don't top up your minutes, you'll get a message from them telling you to top up or  lose  your phone #.  I caught mine just in time, but if you're inactive and don't turn the phone on for a while, you could get the message too late and already have lost your #.

I've always been able to activate my Tracfones and add minutes without registering them, fake name or otherwise.

What am I missing out on? And how does it handle having multiple phones on your account?

Or with Virgin Mobile do you just add minutes, with no expiration date?

For example, Tracfone minutes cards can add 90 days and 60 minutes or more. After the 90 days, you can lose your phone number if you don't activate another card within a grace period of, I think, 10-15 days.

I am not certain, as this happened months ago.  But I think I still had minutes left.  I assume this is VM's way of forcing you to buy a certain amount  of minutes and it may well be in the agreement, which, of course, I never read.

I had the account to keep my number when I upgraded phones.   I think I'm rolling over like 600 minutes now!   I am careful not to let the phone lapse...  though that might be a plan if you wanted to change numbers...  just let it lapse & start over with a new number.  
It might indeed be better to top up your TF through the handset & avoid the registration process all together...

The best thing I ever did was buy a one year card that added 400 minutes and they do not expire for one year. So no reloading for that period.