taking a Dominican phone to the USA for a month

Take your DR phone into Verizon and they will charge you $40.00 to give you a Verizon sim card, most of their phones are the old kind and not as modern as third world technology. Or go to Walmart and buy one for $19.99 with a sim card already therein. Ladies' choice. I went thru it a few months ago and that was my experience. But neither will give you service international.
Der Fish

If you bought your phone at a Claro office, your phone is properly locked. There are places out there, where they unlock phones. If you have an unlocked phone you can just purchase another sim cart in the States and use your phone according to the conditions of your sim cart.
I have ONE unlocked smart phone and I have a Dominican sim cart for here and a European one I use in Europe. No problem.

mountainannie said:

Is there a way to just change a chip or get a plan so that my DR Claro phone will work in the USA?

Or should I just go to Walmart and get one of those sorta burner phones that the crooks are always using on TV?

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It depends on what "work" means.

If you want the same DR phone number to keep working in the US you need ROAMING. Very convenient (especially for your callers who can keep on dialing your normal number and paying the normal rate) but VERY expensive for you (both to make AND receive calls). You should activate it before traveling, at a Claro office.

Replacing the Claro SIM card with a prepaid US SIM card MIGHT work (your callers would need to be told your US number, obviously). But the phone must be unlocked. Furthermore, the unlocked phone will NOT necessarily work with EVERY US carrier (depends on something called "bands", see http://dr1.com/forums/showthread.php/155658-broken-phone ), or might work but only over an older technology (like 2G) as opposed to 3G or especially 4G. The technology (2G/3G/4G) should only affect your Internet speed (not the ability to make/receive calls or send SMS).

I use a Nexus 5 phone. Claro sims work fine here, and when I go to the US I put in a T-Mobile Sim and it works fine. You can get a T-Mobile Sim in the US and just put minutes on it with a card from 7-11 or Walmart and a lot of other stores.

SKY said:

I use a Nexus 5 phone. Claro sims work fine here, and when I go to the US I put in a T-Mobile Sim and it works fine. You can get a T-Mobile Sim in the US and just put minutes on it with a card from 7-11 or Walmart and a lot of other stores.

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It seems that T-Mobile operates in Puerto Rico their 4G (LTE) service strictly over band 4, just like Claro does in the DR. They also use this band in the US mainland (together with other bands). This is consistent with your experience, and suggests that T-Mobile would be a safe choice for Claro users who want 4G service (and viceversa).