Virgin Mobile LG Optimus Elite Give Users $25 Google Wallet Credit

Virgin Mobile is giving new LG Optimus Elite buyers some extra cash to go along with their new phone.

From now until July 18, new LG Optimus Elite users can activate Google Wallet on their phones to receive $25 for the service. The money comes in the form of a prepaid card, but users need to activate Google Wallet within a week of buying the phone to get the extra cash.

Prepaid Google Wallet cards are usable in any store that supports Google Wallet, which includes a variety of retail stores. The service isn’t accepted everywhere just yet, though, and it’s just one of the many mobile payment options available at the moment. Other options include Square, PayPal’s Here, LevelUp, and TabbedOut which powers mobile payments at TGI Friday’s.

The LG Optimus Elite is one of the first prepaid smartphones with NFC to support Google Wallet. It may even be the first NFC-equipped prepaid phone in the U.S.

The phone can use Google Wallet because Virgin Mobile operates on Sprint’s network. Sprint is the only U.S. carrier that supports Google Wallet, though Google recently tried to get AT&T and Verizon on board as well.

We hope Google Wallet on the LG Optimus Elite will help bring mobile payments to more people. We’ve seen reports saying Americans don’t want mobile payments, and other reports saying they do want mobile payments. We lean closer to the latter group. Smartphones offer a faster, easier way to make payments, and we’d love it if we could take advantage of mobile payments more often.