We had a SIM card from CIE for years and were rather happy with their service.
I tried their European partner, but it did not work for me.
Our travel in Europe is usually 1- 2 weeks at the time....the phone is mostly used for emergency ( or similar) situations. We have an unlocked phone .
.
Since CIE charged my credit card after the trip, I am not sure how other SIM
card providers charge.
I have looked at Orange ..... so many options,,
Do you purchase a card with a certain pre payed amount?
Once you purchase a card , how do you top it up?
I am looking for the simplest way that would work in different European countries.
We do not use the phone often, so the charges are not the main concern.

Most cards today are prepay! You're notified when you time is running low...

thanks Robert

You buy X minutes worth of calls. They give you a number to call from the phone (or a landline or a computer), and you top it up. They usually send you a notice that it's time to top it up, or there's a number to call to find out what your balance is. It's very easy. If it's a French SIM (and maybe others as well), you have to go through a self-identification process within 15 days of purchasing your first minutes, but there are instructions for that as well.

Used Orange as outlined by StCirq last year and they were great. A good tip= Most hotels have free Wifi.We used our Ipod Touch all through Europe to send messages to hotels as we were booking as we travelled. I carried a list of potenital places for each area so we werent tied down.They get back to you amazingly fast.

thanks for your helpful suggestions

Assume you mean Orange France? Different countries have different policies as far as minimum purchases, topping up, validity and the like based well on traditions.

Assuming you mean Orange France, they are not nice people on some of the things that might be important. It is next to impossible to top up a card from outside France unless before leaving you buy top up vouchers from a tabac (same goes for SFR in another thread here). The top up voucher can be applied from outside France since Orange (and SFR) allow international roaming (even from North America) but as far as I see you cannot simply go to a web site and top up using an out of France credit card.

Also, as has been the French tradition, top ups are for a specific number of calls (in terms of money) and a specific period of time. Thus, although it might have changed in the last few months although I doubt it, a top oup of €10 will give you that amount worth of calls at whatever tariff you have signed up for (including roaming within the eu and calls within the eu to other eu numbers) but at the end of 30 days, they steal your remaining credit and you have six months from that time for the sim card to remain valid for topping up or to use it to receive calls for free within France. After that point, the sim card is kaput. OTOH, British sim cards, for example, follow a far different policy. A british sim card remains valid as long as there is money on it provided it is used at least once wthin a 180 day period (a full year for Orange UK, at least as of a few months ago). Thus if you leave the UK with a few quid left on your Orange or T mobile UK sim card, all you have to do to keep it valid is send one measly text message within the validity period which starts the clock running again. The UK carriers for the most part allow roaming in North America. Thus, for example, I have had an Orange UK sim card since 2001 with the same number (beats me having to memorize a new number)......in one instance I was away from the UK for more than a year.....within the validity period, I turned on the phone, it indeed registered on a USA network and sent a text message for 35p to myself on a US mobile. TRhe text message went through, no problem. The validity of the card was extended, no problem. Whether it was necesdsary, whether it would have made more senbse to wait for my return to Great Britain is another question as British sim cards are FREE, you only pay for topping up and for the most part they do give you back your credit as I understand it. The French are sob's about this, though.

Thanks for the explanation, xyz

Yes it was Orange France only. In Germany, we used Blauworld and were able to use the SIM ( our own unlocked phone)with varying charges through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.When we bought the SIM and some prepaid minutes, they loaded it up for us at the store.
https://www.blauworld.de/tariff/international_flat_500

oops...there is an error in my post but it doesn't involve Orange FR but SFR. A good part of SFR is owned by vodafone; as a matter of fact there was some consideration given to change SFR to Vodafone FR a few years ago.;

Vodafone has a program that allows cross border top ups using local vodafone vouchers. Thus if you have an SFR simn card and are in the UK, you can purcvhase a vodafone UK top up slip and use it while in the UK to top up an SFR sim card (or any vodafone sim card including vodafone DE vodafone IT and even, I believe, Vodafone Australia. No such program exists for Orange. I can't find the SFR thread right now but again that was true the last time I was in France in June.

All this has really lessened in importance as the eu is committed to making the eu one big non roaming zone by 2015 and they're well on the way. You can recive calls while in the eu on most any eu sim card for all little as 0,11€/minute and calls within the eu are capped...the direction for this is to go down each year and eventually disappear.

thanks again

I'm looking into prepaid cards for romania!!! so much to choose from!!!!
does anybody have any hints or experiences with the romanian prepaid cards and how to top them up?

Ok, in case anybody is interested in prepaid plans in Romania... I've just found this blog on google: http://prepaidheaven.wordpress.com/2...es-in-romania/ This blog is writing about different prepaid plans in a few countries including romania! It made the decision easier to go with cosmote.