How to Save money on Phone Cards

Compare, Compare, Compare.
There are many prepaid phone cards out there and yes, there are some major differences between the fee's they charge. If you're serious about getting the most out of your hard earned money, take the time to compare different cards.

ALWAYS READ THE SMALL PRINT!

Every Month you don't need to spend a fortune for calling home. There are certain things you can do to stretch your pennies and keep your budget reasonable.

Connection Fee:
This fee is billed for every call that is connected. If answering machines, fax machines, voice mail, or pagers picks up, the call is considered to be connected. Connection fees vary wildly between different calling cards. If you are planning on making only short calls, the connection fee alone can “eat up” your cards minutes.

Check the per minute rate:
This is the rate that is billed for each minute of the conversation that the caller engages in and is usually expressed in cents per minute. Many prepaid phone cards will have a cheap per minute rate, but then a very high connection fee. Once again, if you make only short quick calls, check the per minute rate while knowing what your connection fee is.

Expiration Date:
Many prepaid phone cards will expire on a certain date. This time span is usually 3-6 months and is either from the date of purchase or the cards first use. If your card expires with minutes still remaining, all you can do is THRASH it.

Pay Phone Fee:
This fee is an FCC mandated fee that is collected every time that a payphone is used. Every phone card has a pay phone fee but these fees vary between companies.

Maintenance Fee:
This is a scheduled fee that might be applied weekly, monthly, and sometimes even daily (the fee is normally applied monthly). This fee is applied to any card that has been used at least once.

Rechargeable Cards:
Some prepaid calling cards must be thrown away once the minutes are used or when the card expires, but others are rechargeable. If your card is rechargeable you will be able to add more minutes by contacting the carrier.

Calling from Cell Phone:
Read the small print because in some cases a call from a cell phone will use up more of your minutes. Calling from Cell Phone

Select the time of call, if possible.
Figure out what your calling patterns are. Calls made during the evenings and weekends can be significantly cheaper than calls made during the weekday. Only applicable to certain cards!