Phone cards one more time!!!!
 

Going to London and Istanbul later this month...What is the best way to call US.We both need to be in touch with home .I have read several threads about cards and where to purchase and even the suggestion of getting a cell phone in Europe...Our US cell provider does not have intrernational connections...THANKS

Dear Barry:<BR><BR>If you have AT&amp;T long distance service, get a list of their access numbers for the UK and Turkey. They are probably listed on their website. If you don't have AT&amp;T consider joining them, maybe just for as short as possible so you can use them on your trip. You can then call the local access numbers from your hotel room for free or the charge of a local call.<BR><BR>Also, leave your itinery with hotel phone/fax numbers and people can contact you by phone and fax as necessary. Many hotels have an internent connection either in the business center or from your TV which you can use for e-mail.<BR><BR>If you are staying at a 4/5 star hotel, they may rent you a cell phone, but it will be expensive. Using old-fashioned AT&amp;T is a reasonable option. <BR><BR>I live in Europe, but have not seen these pre-paid phones people talk about, so I don't know anything about them, or whether they are widely available.<BR><BR>Hope this is helpful.

Just returned from Italy and used my free hotmail.com e-mail from all over. If your hotel doesn't have connection certainly in London there are e-mail Cafe all over, I usually paid $2.50 or so for 30 minutes and sent home photos from my digital camera too! Don't know about Turkey but found most cities have e-mail shops. In Italy we bought phone card too and called US easily from public phones and it was way cheaper than AT&amp;T.

In London, a lot of different phone cards are on sale from shops and kiosks, with eye-catching rates like 5p to US. But that refers to calls made from normal landline (subscriber ohone). If you use them through call boxes, the telecom operator (usually BT) plus sometimes the cared issuer add a surcharge which could be anything from 12p to 25p a minute. So read the small prints very carefully before buying pre-paid cards. Hotels normally charge a connection fee (usually one-off) for using calling cards of around 50p from room phones.

In London, a lot of different phone cards are on sale from shops and kiosks, with eye-catching rate like 5p to US. But that refers to calls made from normal landline (subscriber phone). If you use them through call boxes, the telecom operator (usually BT) plus sometimes the card issuer add a surcharge which could be anything from 12p to 25p A MINUTE. So read the small prints very carefully before buying pre-paid cards. Hotels normally charge a connection fee (usually one-off) for using calling cards of around 50p from room phones.