How to Choose the Best Prepaid Phone Card
How to select the right prepaid phone card to buy can be confusing. There are so many options for a phone card that many people simply choose the card that advertises the lowest rates or display the most minutes to the country they want to call. Often these cards are actually the most expensive to use, as they contain other fees which reduce the time available on the card for actual phone calls.
You can choose the best phone card by following three easy steps;
- Define your calling needs.
- Understand the differences between Phone Cards.
- Choose the best Phone Card for you.
What Are Your Calling Needs?
With such a wide variety of phone cards to choose from its important that you define how you will be using the card to make calls. Below is a list of what to consider when defining your calling needs:
- Call Destination – Where will you be calling? What country?
- Call TIme – How long do you think your calls will be? 10 minutes? 30 minutes? Over an hour?
- Call Frequency – Do you need a card for just a one time long distance call? Or will you be making multiple long distance calls?
- Connection Quality – Do you need the highest quality connection? Or do you just want to make a call the cheapest way?
Comparing the Differences Between Phone Cards
Now that you know how you would like to use the phone card, the next step is to find the best card for your calling needs. The best way is to read all the phone card details before you buy. Below are some of the things to notice when comparing different calling cards:
Fees
What kind of fees does the phone card charge? Many prepaid phone cards have fees, such as connection fees, maintenance fees, termination fees, disconnection fees, etc. Phone cards advertising the most minutes may have some or all of these extra fees, which will reduce the total minutes you will receive from the card.
Some fees may not affect you depending on how you plan to use your card. If you plan to place only one or two long calls right away, the card with the most minutes may be the best option for you. For example, buying a phone card that charges a bi-weekly maintenance fee would be all right if you plan to use all the minutes in one or two calls within two weeks before this fee applies.
However, if you plan on using your card to make multiple calls over a longer period of time, your best option would be a calling card that charges no fees, such as the Best2Call No Fee card. The minutes advertised will not be as high as other cards that charge various fees, but the minutes on a no fee card will not be used up by the fees the other calling cards charge. A no fee card will give you the full amount of minutes no matter how many calls you make or how long you talk.
Minute Rounding
Minute rounding is the process of rounding up your call time to the nearest minute. If you make a 30 second call, a card with 1-minute rounding would subtract one minute from your card. Phone cards with 3-minute rounding would subtract 3 minutes for the same 30 second call.
Most phone cards use 1 minute rounding, but some cards that advertise a lot of minutes may have 2- or 3-minute rounding. So if you plan on using your card for multiple short calls a 1-minute rounding card would be the best way to go. If you plan on using all or most of your card's minutes on one or two calls, 2- or 3-minute rounding may not affect you that much.
Access Numbers
Most phone cards have a toll free access number for making calls from the United States. You may not be charged on your personal phone bill when you call the toll free access number, but you do pay for it through the total minutes you get from a phone card. The cost of this toll free call is actually calculated into the minutes advertised on phone cards, reducing the overall minutes you will get.
However, many cards also offer local access numbers, eliminating the cost of the toll free part of your call. You won't be charged by your local phone company for the local access call, and your phone card will not deduct for toll free access. So you will get more actual calling time when you use a local access number. You should always check to see if a card has local access numbers for your area. We recommend the Best2Call No Fee card as it has many local access numbers across the United States.
Choose the best phone card for you
Now that you know how you want to use your phone card and what to look for when comparing cards, BestPricedCards.com has made it easy for you to find and buy the best calling card for you. Just click the link below and either search using the form in the top left or choose a country from the middle of the page.
|
