Need Phone Card Help

[OK BOOK IT]

I have never used a phone card. Can I buy a card before we leave on our trip to use in Europe, to call home? Are the cards easy to use? Can anyone help me with phone card 101?

[TabithaP]

Hi,

 

I was in Europe this summer and we used phone cards. I think they are fairly easy but we found they are different. We bought them in Italy and Greece. They usually sell them at the tobac shops and the cards will have either an activation strip or corner that must be removed to activate them or some other mechanism. The phones have slots that you slide the card in and you find your international code on the phone list (usually posted on the phone but in Greece it was not so remember what your code is when you find it) I think the US is 011 but I'm not sure so check. Then you call using the instructions which will not be in english so you'll have to decipher but still not too hard. The display on the phone will show you the remaining Euros you have on the card and these phones suck the Euros but we only had to purchase two cards the whole trip b/c we were really too busy to talk long. Good luck and have fun!

[kitty9]

Don't buy your phone cards here in the US to use in foreign countries. They don't work in most of the phones. Buy the cards in the country that you're going to use it in.

[29Waves]

MCI sells an International phone card specifiically for calling the US from foreign destinations.

It is simple to use from any hotel, you just get an outside line, dial the toll free access number they supply you with for that particular country, then a 2 or 3 digit code they supply you with along with the PIN number they supply you with, then you enter the area code and phone number you are trying to reach.

Should you have any problems, they supply you with a customer service phone number as well.

I have been buying them for sometime now, they are the least expensive way to call the US from overseas, and they work very well, with clear calls.

You can purchase them online from MCI directly or any number of companies that sell phone cards.

In the long run, they turn out to be less expensive than any of the phone cards you can buy overseas.

I have been using them for several years and travel overseas fairly frequently.

I should have also mentioned that you can of course use them from pay phones as well ;)

D~

[arkcruiser]

I have always used AT&T cards from Sams Club. AT&T has access numbers for most countries. It will certainly work in Europe -- I've used them in France, Spain and the UK. The only place I've tried unsuccessfully was Grand Cayman. Might not work in mexico, either but did work in Costa Rica.

[Andym]

Have a read of this, it may be of helphttp://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1064351697,47152,