Since I seem to be one of the few people left who doesn't have a cell phone, I use phone cards when I travel... but I've never studied them enough to figure out what the best deal is. Anyone have an opinion on what card is best?
(I'm not sure if there is a best deal, really. Pay phones seem to charge a higher and higher price all the time for using a phone card, last time I tried it was up to 80 cents basic charge just for using a pay phone...)
Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :
I've always bought mine from Costco. They're either from MCI or Sprint, depending on what they have. They cost $20 and are good for nearly 700 minutes. It works out to less than .04 a minute, and you can recharge them with a credit card for the same unit price. The AT&T ones that Walmart sells are more like .10 a minute.
They do charge an extra fee for using them with a pay phone, but I seldom use pay phones, so I can't comment on that.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
I have two from Sam's Club that are about the same deal. (I did not buy them, they were bought for me. I don't shop at Evil Mart or its subsidiaries, but it's a heck of a good deal.) They are also rechargable-- 1000 minutes for about $30.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
I used to work for one of the big LD phone companies. Whatever brand of phone card you go with, read the fine print before trying to figure out how much it costs per minute. Many of them have a connection charge or a minimum per call that eats up the credit on the card so you don't actually get the full number of minutes listed on the front. It's very, very rare to get a phone card that's actually as good of a deal as it seems looking at the front of the card.
Also, if you have an actual long distance account and get a phone card that's attached to it, DON'T USE IT! Many times these will be "prepaid" for a certain amount of minutes but don't stop when those minutes are up, they continue to bill your account at a very high rate when you think you're still using the "free" portion of the card. MCI is terrible for this one. (This doesn't apply to store-bought prepaid cards. Just throwing the warning out there as long as we're on the subject.)
--Enigmatic
Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :
I don't have long distance service on my phone, so I've used the Costco cards regularly for over 4 years. The only time I've ever had to pay a connection fee was when I was calling from a pay phone. If you can avoid that (which I realize isn't always possible), you will get the full number of minutes.
Posted by Valentine014 (Member # 5981) on :
Plaid, I know you like to travel via train, but for the record, avoid buying any phone card at the airport.