Phoning home
 

Dear all,

My parents are flying to Malaga and will stay for 4 weeks. I heard that the best (cheapest) thing for phoning home (England) is to buy a SIM card in Spain (their phone is unlocked). Their Spanish is not good, so would you say that buying a SIM card in Spain is straightforward or too complicated?

Thank you

Re: Phoning home
 

The cheapest way to phone UK is probably in an internet cafe or a CALLBOX where lots of phones are installed for phoning abroad and at quite cheap rates. Also the local phones will be cheaper than a sim card setup, instructions are usually in English also. They are simple to use, just put money in and dial dont forget the UK code and miss the 0 off the area code, you can add more coins as it uses it if you need to.

Re: Phoning home
 

Hi.
We buy phone cards that you can use on a land line, the instructions are on the back and dead simple, it looks like you are in malaga so there will probably be a few good english speaking spanish around to help. We pay 12 euros and get 500 mins. Thats a euro direct card, it looks like a credit card and you can bet them from the places that sell newspapers.

good luck

love

mary x

Re: Phoning home
 

Dear Mary,
Is this the card you mean? Sorry I am clueless, have never used a card like this before so can I ask some more questions... :D

So I think you get 500 mins if you call from a private land line but less minutes if you call from a public payphone or mobile. But does it matter whether the number you are calling in England is land or mobile? Also is there only one charge ie to the phonecard not two ie the card and the phone itself? And does the card tell you how many minutes you have left?

By the way, the cost of calling England from Spain using their Virgin mobile contract is 95p per min = nearly £60 per hour, what a joke! :rofl:

Muchas gracias

Re: Phoning home
 

If you fancy the SIM card option & your parents have not left yet
Have a look at
www.0044.co.uk/spain
You can get a Vodaphone Spanish SIM card from .
It costs £ 29.99 & you get quite a few free minutes with it
It is easy to top up at most places in Spain
They give good instructions if the phone being used needs unlocking
But my wife often uses the public phone boxes & you can have a decent lengh conversation for a euro or two

Chris

Re: Phoning home
 

it is possible to buy a spanish SIM in the UK. This will give your
parents a spanish phone number and will allow them to call the
UK at the spanish providers normal international rate.
A quick google for "spain" and "sim" will give you some suppliers.
I've got one of these and have no problems, once I learned
how to change the default language on my phone back to english

Pete

Re: Phoning home
 

My advice would be to use voipcheap. Its being discussed here at the moment. For the cost of €10 they could have 20 or more hours during the month they are here. You dont need an internet phone, just 2 home or mobile numbers.

Re: Phoning home
 

yes, that's the card Mary means, we also use it all the time, we buy the 6€ ones, gives about 240 mins per card to landlines, no, there is no charge to the phone line, all covered by the card, and you can use it on a public telephone, but you get a few less minutes as the phone providers take a few minutes worth of the call, but it's not much. To a mobile, then you get considerably LESS minutes, but still a lot cheaper than using a public phone or another mobile. There are several different ones, but all work pretty well much the same, on the Euro direct card to dial 1700, then press 2 for english, type in the pin number, then the call number, remembering not to use the first 0 in the UK number, thus 0116 becomes 116.

Re: Phoning home
 

You can buy Spanish sim cards on ebay.

Re: Phoning home
 

Or you can buy a new Spanish phone over here for about 36 euros.

Re: Phoning home
 

On the odd occasion that I need to call a UK landline number on my Spanish mobile I use the prefix 902902952. You then get an international call for the cost of a call to a Spanish 902 number at about €0,07 per minute. There are no up-front payments or contracts to sign.

Re: Phoning home
 

Talking of phones....................................
Dont forget you can get your Spanish phone number transfered to a UK phone number, so friends can call you in Spain for the cost of a UK call 3 pence a minute.
I have one and the only time they have a problem is on Spanish holidays when every telefonica number is in use ;-) HERE http://bestsmileys.com/talking/3.gif

Re: Phoning home
 

Care, with the phone cards. We brought ours for 6 euros but found out to our loss that it was only valid for 45 days, once you have activated it. So if you don't use it you lose it.:(

Re: Phoning home
 

Never have a problem with ours running out, always use it well before the date.

Re: Phoning home
 

It is much cheaper to buy the same card in Spain.

Re: Phoning home
 

Just out of interest .
How much does it cost & how many free miutes do you get ?

Re: Phoning home
 

Hi,
The EURO DIRECT card i bought yesterday(€6) had 300 minutes on it,from a land line.Used to be 260 mins! I too have no trouble using it within the 45 days!!:D

Re: Phoning home
 

0044 v Vodaphone shop in Spain.
Same card and same offer,I bought mine from 0044 approx.3yrs ago and when i arrived in Spain i found it was a lot cheaper.How much??not sure but possibly a third or more.:sneaky:

Re: Phoning home
 

Buy the card in Spain at one of the independent phone shops or carboots, I got a vodafone one for 8 euros and it had 10 euros on it. They sell all flavours.

Re: Phoning home
 

My daughter is in Spain and has a Vodaphone sim, could I register her number and call her at the cheaper UK rate? Receiving calls from the UK are expensive on a mobile and I don't want to incur any charges on her mobile. I've looked at the site but can't see anywhere that says she won't be charged :unsure:

Re: Phoning home
 

Sorry for being thick but wouldn't you need a PC in Spain to use this?

Re: Phoning home
 

I was hoping to get a SIM card but it seems they are quite expensive eg £30 and then (after a few free minutes) the cost of calls eg 20 or 30p per minute on top of this. Maybe the best thing would be to wait and then get a SIM card in Spain but my parents are no spring chickens so I think this would be too complicated for them. ;)

Re: Phoning home
 

Thanks to all for replies. I think my parents will have to give up the convenience of the mobile and go with the Euro Direct card. :) So I think the card has a 12 digit pin number. Is there something to press for follow on calls and is there something on the menu to tell you how many minutes you have left? The phonecard website is not very helpful about how to use the card. :unsure:

Thank you

Re: Phoning home
 

Hi
Have a look at their web site all the tariffs are explained in English
It does appear to be a dearer option by the looks of it.
But at the end of the day it is all very straight forward
Is this a one of visit to Spain for your parents ?

Re: Phoning home
 

Yes you are right - once the SIM card is in, it is definitely more convenient than the phone card.
They would like to do it annually - go for about four weeks to get away from the cold.

Re: Phoning home
 

Not sure but I think they are landlines only.

Just reread it and it says mobile too, but maybe it would be more than 3 pence a min. Also maybe the expat has to register ?, try it and see, if not get her to do it.

Re: Phoning home
 

Most people in the shops are very helpful and I am sure they would set it up for them also chenge to english.
The only problem is most sims run out of date if they are not topped up continuously and by next year they will have to renew it ;-(

Re: Phoning home
 

Thanks for replying jdr. Wonder if anyone else has used this service for a mobile? Anyone out there who can advise please :confused:

By the way....just received a text from my daughter, she says her Spanish is coming along nicely and she has made a Spanish friend and they text each other in Spanish! She has only been learning for 4 weeks!! :D Makes me a happy mum to get that text :D

Re: Phoning home
 

Hang on and I will try it out ;-) from this end.

Re: Phoning home
 

I am mainly concerned at zapping all my daughters credit :unsure:

Re: Phoning home
 

I just registered my Movistar number and got a UK number to call me on in Spain, but it will cost 26 pence a min, also I assume that is calling from a landline.

Re: Phoning home
 

Will it cost you to receive the call? I know it was 60p a minute to receive calls on our English sim. As I said, I don't want to zap my daughters credit :unsure: She is registered with Vodaphone es

Re: Phoning home
 

You will be calling a UK number so I assume she should not get charged off her credit.
Is it a Spanish Vodafone or UK ? If its UK I dont think it will work cos one number has to be international.

Re: Phoning home
 

Its only if its UK call to UK sim in another country, you get double airtime charged.

Re: Phoning home
 

She has a Spanish number, we both bought Spanish Vodaphone sims. I'm going to think about this and maybe try and register her number if I can. I'll think it through first. Thanks jdr, you have been a great help, you are a gem :)

Sorry Charles....didn't mean to take over your thread.

Re: Phoning home
 

Should work ok just put your email and her number in the box, dont forget the 0034, get her to check her credit, do a test call and see what she has left ;-)

Re: Phoning home
 

Sent an e-mail to support on the site and got a reply from Jon Steele.....

"There shouldn't be any charges for receiving calls unless they are applied by Vodafone Espania (which to my knowledge, they don't)"

So I will give it a go, she's working this evening so I'll phone her tomorrow.

Re: Phoning home
 

Couldn't wait until tomorrow :) so I've just phoned my daughter in Spain using the UK number. It worked :thumbup: She was so pleased to hear from me as she has run out of credit on her phone (so I definitely know she wasn't being charged for the call :D ) I feel so much happier now that I have spoken to her. What a great service!! Highly recommended :thumbup:

It cost me 23.5p per minute from a landline to her mobile, normally costs 20p per text, worth every penny as we were able to say so more to each other than we could by text.

Re: Phoning home
 

Nice one, its good to hear voices rather than reading ;-)
That guy phoned me from Oz to check if my line was working once ;-)

Re: Phoning home
 

OK....here's a difficult one!

My son is in Greece and as he moves around alot, I can only reach him on his mobile, which is costing me a fortune. Soooooooooooooooooooo, if I register his greek mobile number on the site and call him on the UK number that is supplied(from my spanish telefonica landline), will I be charged for calling a UK number? Because if this is possible, it would save me alot of money.

Wondering now if that made any sense?