Calling cards

How to save money on international calls

International calls home can be really expensive. One of the cheapest ways to keep in touch with your family and friends is to use an international prepaid calling card.

Prepaid international calling cards offer you a wide range of advantages on international calls:

• They usually offer the lowest rates available - you can save up to 90% of the cost of a normal call.
• You can use them from every phone (work, home, mobile and public phones)
• If you use a toll-free number, you can call from work or a friend's phone without them being charged for the call.
• It's easy to control your spending and avoid the "bad surprise" of an astronomical monthly phone bill.

Card providers offer such cheap calls because they buy high quantities of international minutes at large discounts.

Other options for making inexpensive international calls are by using internet services (eg. Skype, VOIP) or by using Long distance company codes (eg. 101 or 1010 phone numbers). Make sure to compare rates of different long distance company codes. It may be cheaper to call one country from one long distance company code and a different country with a different long distance company code.

Choosing a card

Shops normally don't have much information or give useful advice. You might sell whatever is in stock - this could be a bad-value card where the credit disappears quickly or where the service means your calls don't connect properly. When choosing a card, take into account:

• The tariffs for the country(ies) you call.
• The length of your calls - Some cards have a small connection charge which is a disadvantage if you make lots of short calls, but no problem if you talk for an hour at a time to family and friends.
• How much you call - All cards expire (usually 30-90 days from the first time you use it to call). Some cards also have cards have a daily maintenance charge, which obviously matters less if you use the card quickly.

The main thing to remember is that the card with the lowest rate per minute might not be the most efficient card for you. Some of the cards we sell might appear not to the best per-minute value on the first sight, but they may have the advantage of no extra charges, so work out well for the majority of our customers.