Phone cards: are they worth it?

I was just speaking with my father over Skype by calling his land line. So I had just paid $2.95 for a month of unlimited calls to any land line in US and Canada and decided since I already paid for it, I should use it. Well, in this discussion on how to make the cheapest long-distance calling option.

Right now my father is using a pre-paid MCI calling card. Which he states that he pays about $0.03 a minute for a phone call from Idaho to Florida. Same would be true from his home to my home and he figures that is the best rate he can get.

That made me wonder: is it cheaper to call per minute on a pre-paid card or is it better to have a plan or something similar?

I started to look on the internet for “calling cards” and found one called PennyTalk Calling Card. Wow this looks like the best thing out there right now. But wait, look what I found in the fine print.

“Are there any additional charges?”

This was the response on the FAQ question:

“With PennyTalk, there are no hidden charges. There is a 49¢ connection fee which is charged at the time each call is made and answer supervision is received. There is also a 99¢ monthly service fee that applies to all accounts and is charged on each monthly anniversary of activation. Calls made from Alaska are billed an additional 10¢ per minute. Surcharges may apply for calls made from a cellular phone. A 90¢ payphone operator recovery fee will be charged on calls made from payphones.”

So PennyTalk may allow you to talk for a penny a minute, however, there are other charges that apply that make the call cost considerably more than one penny a minute.

I didn’t research much more but I did find that the MCI card does not have a per call charge and as long as the call is between your land line phone and you don’t get charged for making 800 calls your cost to complete the call through the MCI card is only three cents a minute to most places nationwide. AZ and a few other states have eight cents a minute but still on short calls this is far cheaper than what your cell phone, long distance provider, or that PennyTalk card would provide you.

Please send me comments on articles that have done much deeper research than I have done. I would love to read about them.

Until the next time,

Thirteen