Are these still the best phone card to buy for use TO the US and within Spain for a couple of weeks.

[ 06-20-2001: Message edited by: Antonio ]

I have just puzzled out some of the long distance issues between Europe and the US, as my husband and I were in Spain in March and my parents go to France and England tomorrow. We found that MCI, which is our long distance carrier anyway, has a deal where, for a $3 monthly fee, you can get pretty good international rates (17 cents to Spain on weekdays, 9 cents on weekends).

The cool thing is that the calling plan also lets you get that SAME RATE back to the US, using your calling card, with no per-call connection fees (other than the fee a pay phone might charge you--but you shouldn't have to even pay that, since they give you toll-free numbers for each country and we didn't have to pay to dial those from Spanish pay phones). My husband and I used the calling card to call back to the US nearly every day of our ten-day stay, and I think the total bill was under $10.

I suspect that the other major long-distance carriers offer similar plans.
Good luck!
Tara

Tara,

Read the fine print on your agreement. It is what you say but... calling back to the U.S. is misleading. That "same rate" is only available if you call your own home phone. To call any other phone it is very expensive.

I know, I made that mistake while in Spain, and ended up with charges that were well over $1.00 per minute. In fact, I think there was one call that was about $2.00 a minute.

I forgot to read the small print

Wolf (Who now uses a magnifying glass to read small print.)

I think the tarjeta telefonica is great! It used to expire in 6-months but I was able to use the one I bought in September, 2000 thru the first part of June, 2001. Calls back to the U.S. were costing me less than ESP 250 so I finished off my ESP 2.000 card this trip. On Sundays, calls are unbelievably cheap. Tarjeta telefonica is one of the first things I buy on arrival in Spain - at the first 'Tabac' I find.
They have the same type phones (same company) in several European countries. I would like to have been able to use my tarjeta telefonica in Ireland (I didn't try it).

Eddie,Thanks for responding.I had seen your earlier post and hoped you had used them recently. Not speaking Spanish, are they easy to use? in other words do I have to get involved w/operators? Can you tell I haven't been to Europe since the 70's!

The last time I used my tarjeta telefonica was calling Phila from the port of Cadiz on about June 5, 2001. I had taken the high speed ferry there from el Puerto de Santa Maria (ESP 700 round trip) for some shopping.

Find a blue (telefonica) phone; Insert your card with the I/C (little shiny square thing) facing up. The screen tells you how much credit you have remaining (in pesetas). They have touch tone dialing so you hit two zeroes for international, followed by '1' for USA and then your home area code and phone number. There's no operator intervention.

At times they make some funny noises, so I just keep entering numbers until I finish: Eventually they all show up on the screen and you can hear the tones as the numbers are entered.

Eddie thank you again. You've been such a help along with many others in planning this trip. I leave today for 2 weeks and have my new journal packed(w/a Picasso on the cover!)and hope to have some helpful info to report back about all I see. We should try for a Philly dinner group when I get back.

We found great rates with the British Telecom card and the Peoplecall. British Telecom was great for calling the US but ate pesetas like anything for calling a regular móvil within Spain. The 2.000 pta. Peoplecall got one hour, 17 minutes to the US.

Do you know that the information that the screen shows can be switched into english?

Also, in almost all public telephones you may find instructions in english on how to call back home (also in german, portuguese and french I think).

I would say that calling with a telephone card in Spain is by far easier than in the States (and other countries I have visited).

If you want a cheap phone card to call the US, Canada or any other European countries, get a Eurocity card. You can find them in the news stands all around Sol. For 2000 ptas, you get 180 minutes of talk time to the US. That works out to about $0.056 per minute with no connection fee.