I remember I tried that last year when I upgraded from my Pixel 2 to Pixel 3, but it didn't work for me. I bought my Pixel 3 at Best Buy. I swapped in my old Pixel 2 sim into the Pixel 3, and everything worked it seemed. Except phone and I believe LTE data. I was at home when I set up (on wifi) and I thought it was working fine. But when I left home, I later realized i was not getting calls or able to access data.
I had to call Verizon, and they did something to activate that old SIM and all worked fine, but still got hit with the $30 activation. Perhaps I missed a step or something to get around it.