The best way of keeping down the costs of calling home?

[PoppyAnna]

I'm not really one for calling home when on holiday but this time we miss a few bithdays and I would like to call a few people. I would usually use my mobile when holidaying in Europe but obviously the US is more expensive.
What's the best way to do this? We have a tri band treo on Vodafone and and a quad band vario II on t-mobile at our disposal, and a hotel phone (don't fancy their high rates though)

How do phone cards work?

Thanks.

 

[mikki.young]

I use ekit and it is really simple and cheap. You ring an access number and then input your account number and pin and then just dial where you want, including country code, and you get a pre message saying how many minutes credit you have. You can use a hotel phone or a coin phone, whatever as the access number is always a free call number.

 

[Claire L]

Agree with Mikki we use EKall same company as Ekit and $50 willlast us two holidays Youc an check your balance online and also top up online it is so easy to use.

Claire

 

[JohnnySharp2]

We find the phone cards very good value for money.

Last year we had a $10 one bought from the Kennedy Space Center store at MCO, also the 'Florida Star' one's you can buy from any of the discount stores on I-drive or the 192 are good too.

You have a number on the back to dial plus a pin number.
Instructions are there on what to do, find them great for us.

 

[willia03]

We use a phonecard from Ekall - ekall.com/ekit/home

We got one last year for $20 plus $10 free. I've just checked the account and there is still $27 of calls available !!!

 

[Girlsontour]

Bought one last year from Boots - £20 lasted all holiday (and that was phoning home to speak to DH and listen to how bored he was without us every afternoon ) Will buy one again for this year - but quite who i will phone when we are all going i don't know

 

[MorningGlory]

I'm not really one for calling home when on holiday but this time we miss a few bithdays and I would like to call a few people. I would usually use my mobile when holidaying in Europe but obviously the US is more expensive.
What's the best way to do this? We have a tri band treo on Vodafone and and a quad band vario II on t-mobile at our disposal, and a hotel phone (don't fancy their high rates though)

How do phone cards work?

Thanks.

I use a t-mobile PAYG phone and it only costs 59p/min to make or receive calls whilst abroad. Still expensive, but not bad compared to some mobile operators.

 

[LOATES123]

msn?

 

[Hilary]

We have a Sprint International Prepaid Phone Card - the current one was bought from Publix, but we've also had them in the past from gas stations.

A $5 card gives you 120 minutes of calls to the UK (yes, that's 2 hours for £2.50!!).

We usually use hotel phones for the access call, and have never been charged anything, but I was charged $1.50 once when I used a pay phone. Never tried it from a mobile.

 

[PoppyAnna]

msn?

I'm afraid it's DH's parents birthday's whilst we're away, they are not PC literate, they're 71.
He did joke I could take one of his racing pigeons with us....... that would be cheap.

 

[PoppyAnna]

We are penciled in for a Publix stop on the first evening so I'll pick up one there.

 

[Hilary]

I'm afraid it's DH's parents birthday's whilst we're away, they are not PC literate, they're 71.
He did joke I could take one of his racing pigeons with us....... that would be cheap.

Don't write off their IT potential just yet - my mum (82) bought herself a laptop recently, and is in daily email contact with my brother.

(Mind you, when she gets into difficulties with it, I sometimes think it might be quicker to send him a message by carrier pigeon, but she's got to grips with email much better than texts! )

Have a great trip

 

[gbrchill]

I was in New Zealand recently and took my laptop. I ended up keeping in touch with my family at home using a soft phone and SIP (VOIP). There was in intermittent broadband connection in the B&B I was staying in - when it was up DW was able to call me on a local (to her) phone number. I even managed to call her using a local dial up connection and then VOIP on top of that.

All in all this worked out really cheap.

When we go back to WDW in August the laptop will come too, so that we can download photos as we go and if we need to make long calls back home then it will be pressed into service again.

Chris.

 

[stephensmum]

Bought one last year from Boots - £20 lasted all holiday (and that was phoning home to speak to DH and listen to how bored he was without us every afternoon ) Will buy one again for this year - but quite who i will phone when we are all going i don't know

Is this for a mobile or landline?