long distance from China
 

What is the best method of making long distance calls from China?

Buy a local phone card after you get there.

yes buy a phone card. I live in china and use this method to phone north america. We buy 3 1hour time cards for 30 rmb each. this gives us 3 hours of talk time for about $13 cdn.

Where is the best place to buy the cards? Should I ask for any card in particular? Can you use the cards from your hotel room phone or do you have to try to find a pay phone?
Thanks for any help.

You can use a phone card from any phone - they're not encoded, and you don't insert them into a payphone slot. They're just a plastic card printed with some instructions, an ID number and a (scratch-off) PIN. You just dial the local access number shown on the card and follow the voice prompts.

Dial (1) China's international access code (can't remember what it is, sorry), the code for the country you're calling, (3) the area code of the destination [if it's prefaced with a zero, as in some countries, omit the '0'] (4) the local number. The voice prompt should tell you how much credit (in minutes) you have left. Calls are as cheap as chips and the quality, while not always great, is usually adequate.

Thanks Neil
I feel much better now that I know it is easy to phone. Do you know where I could buy a card from?
Loved your comment "cheap as chips" . I live in Canada now but originally from U.K. Haven't heard that expression in years.

catart, to tell the truth I didn't actually buy a phone card when in China, but I'm sure they're very readily available - I'd be surprised if you didn't see them on sale at airport shops. I'm sure your hotel could point you in the right direction if that fails. Here in Australia we use a Chi-Tel card to keep in touch with our daughters in China and they're sold all over the place - post offices, newsagents, Asian grocery shops etc. Usually the posters for the (many) various brands are stuck in the shop window, with rate tables, and easy to spot. Sorry I can't be more help than that. If they sell a 100-yuan card (that's CA$13-14), that should get you a lot of calls. For me to call China (or Canada for that matter) is only two or three cents a minute, plus the cost of the call to the local access number - a bit more if you're calling a mobile (cell) phone. At that price you can talk to your heart's content.

(BTW, I'd say we Australians share at least 80% of our slang with England. Of course we've added some of our own just to baffle unwary visitors.)

Every corner has a person sitting on a stool selling phone cards and you can bargain. Also you will be approached in city centres to buy phone cards, also convience stores sell them.Just ask for a north american card.

I found the cheapest cards at the local post offices, 25% cheaper than the convenience stores next door. Yes, be sure to tell them what country you want to call.

i think we bought phone cards at the hotels too. keep them after the minutes are gone... they've got some cool artwork on them! they have a chip in them, just slide it into the phone slot and then the operator walks you thru making the call. very easy.

Sounds like we're talking about two kinds of card - the type we use has no embedded chip, so the issuing company's central computer keeps track of your credit. I've used the type quimbymoy is referring to in China for domestic calls, which were pretty cheap, and like ours you get Mandarin/English prompts. This might be the kind keldar used too - the rates (about CA$0.07/min) are higher than ours, but the call quality might be better. At these prices, though, why quibble?