Any advice on using phone cards to call home to the U.S. from France? Is it better to purchase a card here in the U.S., e.g. from Costco (MCI or AT&T)? Or do you get better rates purchasing a card in France? Which one is easier to use? Also, is it better to call from a pay phone or the hotel phone?

Wait until you get to France, and buy a phone card ("carte de téléphone) there. You can use them in pay phones -- in fact, many pay phones accept only the telephone cards.

The cards have a small chip that contains a specific number of "units." You insert the card into the pay phone, and the number of units on the card is automatically deducted as you make your calls. The number of units remaining is displayed on the phone, so you'll know if you're running out and need to buy a new card.

You can get phone cards at any Tabac (look for a "Tabac" sign outside) and many newsstands. (Tabacs, incidentally, are the easiest place to also buy metro carnets and postage stamps.)

I forget exactly how much they cost -- a phone card with 50 units was very reasonable (less than $5 IIRC), and that card was sufficient for several calls to the US.

Yep, agree with rizzuto. I had absolutely no problem buying the phone card in Paris. The phone card avec code is versatile as you can use it at both public phones and your hotel phone. I bought mine at a tabac. Very easy and economical-500 minutes for like 7 euro. It lasted a while too and I had absolutely no problems in using it as there are English instructions included.

It's up to you where you want to use it. For sure it's great to sit in your hotel room and use it but I understand minutes are deducted faster on the hotel line.

I actually had the opposite experience, the minutes were deducted at a faster rate when I used the pay phone as opposed to the phone in the hotel - both in Italy and in France. Go figure.

My sister's MIL purchased a prepaid phone card from Sam's before we left on the trip (the rest of us depended on purchasing the phone cards in Europe) and her minutes seemed to be deducted pretty much at the same rate, whether it was by pay phone or hotel phone.

I bought a phone card on a Sunday in Paris from an "Alimentation" shop (like a corner store, with fruits and vegetables for sale in front). All of the Tabacs seemed to be closed, although I'm sure some were open. I'm terrified to call from a hotel phone ever since I was once forced to pay $25 for what should have been toll-free calls.

I loooove French telecartes. They are reasonable and come in a lot of denominations, so it's great to be able to buy one for each kid in the family for a "just in case you get lost" backup plan. Any unused minutes near the end of the trip means they can call a friend from France.

My mother is almost deaf, and she always enjoys hearing from us when we travel in France. She swears our calls from a French telephone booth are clearer than our calls at home.

Try the "France Telecom Card" (Carte France Telecom). For 7.5€, you can phone 180 minutes to the USA!!!Interesting no???

I second Morganne's suggestion. It is called a Telecom 2 card and the rate cited is for public telephones. One warning though: Call a cell phone number in Europe and the rate increases tenfold; I don't know if the same rate applies if calling a cell phone number in the States.