International calling cards suck

So my girlfriend has been studying abroad in South Africa for the past 2 weeks. The school issued each student some special kind of special cell phone, where all incoming calls are free, but calling out costs a shit load of money. Lucky me, I'm naturally the one to go out and buy a phone card here in the states so I can call her.

Now this is where I’ve been getting fucked.

I first tried an AT&T phone card I bought for $25 at Wal-Mart. Oh sweet – 500 minutes for local calls, different rates for international cards. Rates can't be too bad, right? Call her up – electronic lady says I have 25 minutes calling to this location. Whatever, I’ll try a new card.

I go to Sam’s Club, but an “International Value” $15 prepaid phone card with service provided by Smartalk. On the cover, it says rates as low as (of course) $0.047 a minute calling to Africa. Call her up - electronic lady says I have 57 minutes calling to this location. Sweet - $10 less than the previous card and I get double the minutes. I talk to her for about 5 minutes, hang up. I call her again a little later, now the lady says I have 30 minutes. What the hell – I only talked to her for 5 minutes last time. We talk for about 20 minutes, I hang up. Now I don’t have any minutes left. Guess I shouldn’t have been a moron and read the back of the card - $1 connection fee, $1 first use fee, $1 post call fee, $0.50 fee for calls over 5 minutes, etc. etc., the list goes on. Fuck you Smartalk.

Am I just buying really bad phone cards, or is this the general practice for phone companies to screw over their customers? I would like to be able to talk with her every day, but if this shit keeps up that just won’t be possible. We use Skype when we can, but her internet connection over there is so unreliable and shitty, it just doesn’t work out sometimes.

Anyways, I want to know if you guys know anything about phone/calling cards, specifically international ones. I’m very new to this, and would like to keep it as cheap as possible. I’ve been looking at calling cards online, but I don’t know – that just seems a little sketchy to me. Does anybody have any suggestions or recommendations? Country Code to South Africa is 277, if that helps at all…

Thanks guys.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I just use World Connect. 10 bucks.

Thousand more minutes on 10. Of course though, it's only in the US I make calls. Otherwise check your local convenience store for any international calling card posters; the rates of various countries are written on it.

EDIT: Here is the table of rates from the World Connect Prepaid card.

Rate Table of the World Connect Prepaid Calling Card

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The problem isn't the fees, it's the fact that you're calling a cell phone from your land-based phone. It costs more because the signal is being transfered through a cell tower (or many). It would be a lot cheaper if you called a land-line. OR - You should look into Skype if she's got a good internet connection. Computer to Computer calls are free, but the lag kinda sucks.

I'm studying in Ireland for the semester and my girlfriend is back in the States. I use Mr. Swifty cards because they're normally around 3-4 cents a minute for me. World Caller is another good one.

Good luck, man.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yeah, after some research I noticed how the rate per minute is on average raised more than $0.20 because of the fact that I'm calling a cell phone as opposed to a landline, but I'm not sure if she has access to a landline or not.

We do use Skype when we can, but her internet connection isn’t too reliable. I think the cheapest method would have to be through SkypeOut, as the connection fees are minuscule compared to most phone cards.

Still, I believe that I should purchase a phone card simply for the sake of a backup method of contacting her. Because of the 8 hour time difference, sometimes her only free time happens to be when I am at work, and I would much rather prefer to step outside and talk to her for 15 minutes on my cell than yap over Skype from my computer in the middle of the office.

I think I’m going to look into those World Connect cards you mentioned, Terminus. The rates don’t look too bad. Although, I’m sure I’ll get hit with hidden fees – but I’m starting to realize that’s pretty much true of all calling cards .

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Hate to bump an old thread AND double-post, but just wanted to let you guys know that I went with that site that Terminus suggested, and got a pretty sweet deal through them. A $6 card got me 60 minutes of talk time to South Africa. The connection fees still suck, but that's something we'll just have to work around with - if I know I'm going to be on the phone with her for a while, then I know to use this card.

Thanks, Terminus.

I was speaking idiomatically.