Robinson Family

I need to phone Australia tonight to confirm some accommodation details.
Never done this before :scared:

Could anyone advise of the cheapest method?? Is there a code we can dial to get a cheaper rate???
We are with BT.

Am I correct in thinking the country code is +61?

Any help greatly appreciated.
Andrea

gajjitt

You could try these people http://18866.com/ from the UK.
2p per min to call Oz landlines, 15p to call Oz mobiles.
Once set up dial 18866 followed by 0061 for Australia, then drop the first '0' and dial the Australian number.

Cheers Paul

wandrews

We have just moved back to BT but have our calls through a company called Toucan, where australia rates are 3 pence per minute as opposed to 22p with BT.

There are also alot of other companies doing very similar things, it is called carrier pre-select in telco terms, whilst this is a monthly plan, I believe some of them offer pay-as-you-go options.

One other that springs to mind is

http://www.alphatelecom.co.uk

One option is to use the uswitch.com website whereby you can compare services from various telco's.

gajjitt

There is no on going costs, no sign up costs. You pay only for what you use, billed on your credit card each month. You can set up any number of phones to be used. Even if you do use carrier-preselect you can override with the 18866 code.

All UK national calls are free (just 1p to connect, as are all calls).

Paul

Sue from Manchester

Try these people@

www.telediscount.co.uk/accessnumbers.php

I've used them for a couple of months now and you genuinely get cheap calls to Australia. It says 1p per min on the website but it's actuall 2p per min, but that's still brill. You don't have to sign up to anything, just dial the number when you want to make a call and it goes on your normal telephone bill.

You ring (for Australia) 0844 861 86 86 and then wait until you hear a recorded voice telling you how much the call will cost -
then you dial your country code and number, i.e., 00 to get out of the country, 61 for Australia and then the number you want.

I was a bit suspicious at first but I've had a few phone bills through now and they're OK. You can check your time differences before you ring with
www.timeand date.com

gavin_uk

Hi

If you buy a Post Office international phonecard you get pretty cheap calls. I have bought quite a few £5 cards and I believe you get at least 3 hours calls to an OZ landline (a lot less to a mobile though). I have never had any problem with the service, you just dial an 0800 number, type in the code on the card and dial the destination number as normal.

Gavin

gajjitt

Thanks Sue, like the look of that one, no need to preregister. Will give this out to people who might like to contact us.

Cheers

Paul

Brissiegirl

I call Australia every weekend to talk with my family.. I just buy the cheap calling cards that can be purchased at the news agencys around the place. I tend to use the Banana card.. it's cheap and lasts a good long time, and the phone line is pretty good most of the time..

webgum

I would highly recommend this company as well. They don't advertise anywhere, I found out about them through Martin Lewis, the 'money expert' on Radio 2. There was an article in the Guardian about it as well, here's the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian_j...400788,00.html

My phone bills have been virtually non-existent since registering!

Night Nurse

Why not try Skype. It's free to download at:

http://www.skype.com

There are two options. If the person you are calling has Skype installed on their computer you can call computer to computer. The conections are normally excellent and especially so if you buy a headset/microphone combination. This connection type is free and will work with dial-up as well as broadband.

With the second option you first buy some credit (€10 or €25). Having done this you use the 'dial' tab on the Skype page and just dial the number. Most of Europe, the USA and Australia are covered by the 1p/minute rate. Generally, calls to mobiles are about 1.5p/minute. These rates are genuine and we've used Skype a lot to phone our friends and family in Oz/USA.

I know a lot of this is like Messenger, but I reckon this is a lot better (it does have Instant Messenger as well, if you like doing that stuff).

PS: I have absolutely no affiliation with Skype apart from being a satisfied user.

NN's husband who's just be on the phone to NN from the USA for 30 mins and it cost £0.00

Robinson Family

Thanks for all your replies I will do a bit of research so I can call tonight.
Andrea.

darkless

Also www.telesavers.co.uk 1p per min i think

moneypenny20

You could try one of these. Martin Lewis is a genius whose only role in life is to save people money. He has checked checked and treble checked everything on his site before it goes on so you will be safe.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/callchecker/

If you want to save any money on anything, it's a good idea to check out his web site first.