haggis supper

Looking for advice on a decent phone card for twice weekly calls to the UK.

We've had one for almost 4 years but got ripped off recently - my wife put $50 on the card but we didn't use it for a month due to holidays etc and the company kept it. Seems they have some small print that allows it to be written off if not used for 30 days. Joy.

Thanks in advance.

somme

We use super buzz card, comes in $10, £20 and gives you hours of phone calls to a UK landline and no time limit.

Carbery

I own a newsagency and sell a lot of international phone cards. There are dozens available but in my experience the best (to UK) card on the market is 'Aussie' phonecard. The rate is .02c per minute which means a $10 card gives 500 minutes - some cards offer lower rates but check the small print, connection fees, disconnection fees, daily maintenance fees etc eat into balances quickly. Aussie has no hidden charges at all, the only catch being the card expires 90 days after first use.
The other option is off peak cards which offer rates as low as half a cent per minute but these rates are from mid night to 5:00 am. The best of those I have found is 'early bird'.

jsvk

try this one i use it to phone family and find it very good
http://melbourneconnect.com.au/phone...lling_card.jsp

haggis supper

Thanks folks - much appreciated.

ABCDiamond

If you have broadband internet, have you considered VOIP.

Our VOIP costs $19.95 per month, and includes all calls within Australia and the UK.

2 weekly UK calls at $2.50 per call, is already $20 per month, even before normal calls.

somme

VOIP?

OzJo

we use OzCall. Less than 1/2 a cent a minute and for $10 we get almost 2000 minutes

moneypenny20

Daybreak cards. Worked well for us and we now have a local number to call without having to put in a long reference number, their system works out it's us calling. Damn clever in my book but probably quite basic technology

Jane and Jason

Voice Over Internet Protocol.

Carbery

Ozcall has a 59c connection and 30c disconnection fee per call

nessyp

Aussie phone card definatley, we used to use daybreak but aussie def better, no connection fees and $10 lasts us weeks

Carbery

Popular phonecard rates to UK (landline) in cents per minute (inc surchages)

Aussie 2.0
Anytime 3.4
Daybreak 5.9
Global Gossip 7.0
Go Bananas 5.9
Gotalk 5.0
GPS 3.7
Hello 3.8
Joy 3.8
MinuteMax 8.6
Ozcall 9.1
SayGday 5.5

ABCDiamond

Watch out for all the extras on the call cards.

I wondered for ages why we didn't get all the minutes that we paid for, until I checked it thoroughly.

Example call costs using Ozcall
10 minute call to UK
You would expect that it would cost 10 x 0.5c = 5 cents....
but.... The total cost is actually $1.19

Breakdown is:
$0.20 Telsta cost to call access connection number
$0.59 Ozcall Connection fee
$0.10 Actual OZcall call cost (assuming 1.5c per 3 minute block, then rounded up)
$0.30 Ozcall Disconnection fee


With VOIP, we can make as many calls as we like for no charge, and with the ease of dialing direct from the 2nd phone lkine they supply.

The real best bit for us, is that our 12 year old can stay on the phone as long as she likes, without blocking incoming calls on the Telstra line

ABCDiamond

If you have a broadband internet connection and a router/modem, with one spare socket, you can get VOIP.

It can be a small box attached to your router, to which you plug in a normal telephone. We have a wireless phone plugged into ours.

You then pay a monthly fee to the VOIP provider, which can be as low as $5.

Ours starts at $9.95 which allows free calls all over Australia.
But we pay an extra $10 pm to get free calls for USA, UK, Europe etc.

We did use cards at one stage, but they were a pain at times, having to dial the connection number, then enter a password, which we sometimes couldn't find, and then dialling the actual number we wanted....

Then finding it had expired, with the balance lost...
I am also sure that we paid the connection fee even if there was no answer, as the balance was going down without getting to speak to anyone.

The extra $10 per month for overseas calls, and dialling convenience, is well worth it