Do Your e-call

Using prepaid phone cards can slash your phone bills by 50 – 90%. There are many phone card companies which offer prepaid and online phone cards. These cards are supersavers when making overseas and long distance calls. If you are travelling all you need is your local service provider and the phone cards to talk anywhere in the world. The prepaid phone cards have credit on them just like your debit and credit card – you don’t need to carry money hence safer. You can buy your phone cards in person or online. The value of the phone card, the minutes offered and the tariff are mentioned on the cards. Watch out for the connection charges and other hidden costs, too. The access number is usually a toll free number or local access numbers (depending on the provider) – which may differ from country to country.

If you have bought your phone card online you will receive the access number, the PIN, the minutes and the tariff on a receipt that can be printed or saved. Buying the phone cards online is a safer practice as it protects one from fraudulent practices or losses incurred due to loss of the phone card itself. If you have bought the phone cards in person then they have this information printed on them for you to use. Read the instructions carefully. Dial in the access number, follow the requisite instructions and feed the PIN number. You will be informed of the number of minutes available to you and the tariff, which is 90% cheaper than a direct call via landline or cellular phone per minute. Dial in your desired number with the country and local area code before it, if making an international call or area code if making a long distance national call. Once you call has connected you will pay only for the local access and not the international call. It is also advisable to check if 20 minutes of talk time is deducted from your card if the call is made via a public phone.
To get the best deal – do your research on the Internet for the phone cards available in your area. There are calling cards which reduce your phone bills by the same percent. As the user knows the number of minutes available to them they can keep control over the length of their calls as indicated by the timer on the instrument. Promotional phone cards have free extra minutes on them which cut the telephone bill further.

A few American companies that offer these cards are PinPort with credit of 10, 25, 50 and 100 dollars. Cellular International; where calls have no hidden costs. Cent Calls, which charges only a cent per minute on domestic phone cards. Their international phone cards are as reasonable.

Most destinations are reachable by these phone cards; it is advisable to check before buying the phone cards. These are cheap, intelligent and handy communication tools when travelling away from home or abroad.