As my wife's been mostly using her work cell recently, she's been ignoring her personal prepay one resulting in the credit (and number) expiring without her noticing.  I think she usually recharges $50 or $100 at a time on it, but even so she obviously hasn't used it much this year, so any remaining credit loss is fair enough.  She's a bit upset though because she's had the number for thirteen or fourteen years, and obviously would like to get it back.

What would be the best way of doing this? She'll still be mostly using her work cell for the next six months, so signing her up for a contract for her personal phone would be a bit of a waste at the moment, but that seems to be the only way to reclaim her number, and apparently can't be done until mid-September.  I think she was going to resign herself to the change and pick up a new prepay sim today, but I thought someone here might have a better idea?