The Eurpoa card does not have an American flag or the word USA but it does say "North America" and it has a tollfree access number in English. Look at both sides of any card you are considering to make sure there are instructions in a language you understand.

does anyone have the USA 800# for Europa Card? It worked great in Italy but I still have minutes left.

thanks

I have a Cingular cell phone & live in the U.S. I called Cingular & was told the following:

Yes, my phone & service will work in Italy. However, even if I pay the $5 month for the $.99 per minute, I still must pay a high roaming fee. I also must pay the fees on all incoming calls, even if I don't answer the phone. I guess that means while the caller is talking to my voice mail. I didn't go into it any deeper because I figured a calling card would be easier & cheaper. Don't have to worry about losing/damaging the phone, don't have to carry it around (because I'm not taking a purse), & don't have to pay the high bill.

Now I just hope I can retrieve the messages from my voice mail while I am in Italy & my phone is in the U.S. Cingular says I can, although some travelers have reported that they couldn't.

I bought a calling card from Walmart for $10. Figured when that runs out I can either buy more minutes or buy a calling card in Italy.

Julie

Here's a little known fact that could come in handy. Many smaller hotels in Europe pay for a service which gives them very cheap international calls, including to the US. Some of them do that partly just for the faxes they need to send for reservations. I rarely use a phone in Europe, but several times I've been caught up in an "emergency" situation and have made calls back to the states dialing direct from my hotel room. In many of those cases those calls cost almost nothing. Small family run hotels are likely NOT to mark up the calls but simply charge you the discounted fee they pay.
Of course this will not work at all at places like big American chain hotels in Europe -- like Hilton's or Marriott's where they will charge you an arm and a leg, but if you're staying in a small hotel, it is worth asking what they charge.

By the way, in two cases I sent faxes from small European hotels and they didn't charge me at all. The response was that those 1 minute calls cost them almost nothing.

bookmarking. thanks for the info.

Is there any difficulty using the calling card from a rented villa. The villa is supposed to have a phone available for incoming and outgoing calls.

I have always used the calling cards bought at Costco and called from my hotel rooms. I have never been charged for my calls by the hotels. It has always worked perfectly. I have also used the costco card from pay phones through out Europe. I was on a trip with the high school and our room phones were locked, so we used pay phones.

Another vote for the EDICARD -even for us residents here it helps cut cost of phoning to the USA and Europe. For 5 euro there are 180 min. and its validity is 90 days from purchase date.

I haven't tried this but came across this article awhile back. If you have a PDA this seems like a slick solution. I'd try it out in the states before going across the water.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2079136,00.asp