Phone cards

[firsttimer]

We have been sent an EKall phone card with our tickets which says if we join it (£12.50) we will save up to 70% on calls home.
Has anyone used these?
What is the normal cost of a call from a payphone?
Do pay phones take money or do they all take cards?
If the villa has a phone, how do you pay to use that?
Thanks

[Claire M]

Hi

We normally buy a phone card from Walmart. You just ring the number on the back of the card, enter your pin number then ring the UK number. It's very easy and cheap.

I can't remember how much ours was, but it's not expensive. We have used a credit card from a pay phone before at the airport, when the bill came it cost us £18 for about 10 minutes.

Claire

[mikewj]

Payphones charge you an extra fee for using phone cards.

We didn't realise until we had almost run out of credit without going anywhere near the supposedly available time.

Its in the small print somewhere and on the payphone too I think.

[orlandobabe]

It would be interesting to find out the best value phone card.

Cumberland Farm garages used to do a brilliant one. You get about 6 1 hour long calls to the UK for $10 -then they discontinued it. My man co used to sell them to guests for $12 incl tax as the nearest garage was a half hour away.

I haven't found a good replacement yet (must admit been too busy to look). I don't feel Walmart/Winn Dixie offer the best value-so I hope someone can help.

[DaveL]

ABC Florida Card 5 hours UK for $5, see US Phone cards thread.

Regards Dave

[ujpest doza]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by DaveL
ABC Florida Card 5 hours UK for $5, see US Phone cards thread.

Regards Dave
[/quote]

I have been on the 9278.com site and it keeps bringing up the WOW card.

Is that the one you mean?

[firsttimer]

Yes.
By the way, if there is a phone in your villa, can you use phone cards on thet or just on payphones?

[andy and ann hales]

NEVER USE A CREDIT CARD
we used it once on a holiday and it cost £50 for a few short calls home.
Credit card co refunded our money when we complained.

You can buy phone cards everywhere gift shops etc

[Claire M]

Firsttimer

Yes you can use your phone card at the villa.

Claire

[floridadreamvilla.co.uk]

These are the ones where you see a note on the phone along the lines of "Just Like Home Dialling" - use this service at your peril - we had a guest in our villa who ran up a bill of £150 before we realised our old Management Company had installed this in our villa.

Needless to say on the next trip I bought a normal phone for the villa and ceremoniously dumped the old phone on the porch of the old MC [msnwink]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by andy and ann hales
NEVER USE A CREDIT CARD
we used it once on a holiday and it cost £50 for a few short calls home.
Credit card co refunded our money when we complained.

You can buy phone cards everywhere gift shops etc
[/quote]

[floridageoff]

We bought a phone card to use at a rental villa on Ridgewood Lakes this year (we were staying there whilst buying our villa). We were unable to use it until speaking to the operator and giving her our Credit Card number. We had no intention of putting the calls on our credit card but needed to do this in order to make outgoing calls. However, every time we used the phone card the phone company charged us 75 cents per call for the privilege! This has never happened before as we have just phoned the freephone number on the phone card, entered the access code followed by the number you want to ring. Has there been a change in the phone company rules recently or were we just unlucky?

[fiona]

This was a new system last year which was installed without our knowledge by our old MC. We couldn't even call a free number without giving the credit card number:(. We had it removed immediately the next day and got the villa set up with all free calls - international included - that we (the owners pay a fixed fee for. As we were in the process of moving premises for our business and the contracts had not been exchanged before our hols we needed to make tons of international calls.

[blott]

It depends on the phone company Floridageoff which has been set up for each individual home. All vacation home phones have call blocking, most with local free numbers and with ours you can use a calling card but don't need your credit card (best value we've found is 7 Eleven).

As has been said already, beware of giving your credit card before being able to make calls.

[zerotone]

We bought a $10 phone card last week at Walgreens used it at public payphones and in villa, had over 6 hrs call time in total, (mixture of local and uk calls)

Jane