How do the minutes work on international phone cards?

nattalie74: How do the minutes work on international phone cards?
How do the minutes work on international phone cards?
Was wondering if anyone knows much about the international phone cards.It says 143 minutes but I was only allowed to talk for 7 min? I dont understand that.This was my first time using it so kind of confused.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Stephen
You buy a phone card (eg. $ 5), and there is a specific rate for that specific phone card and a specific rate for every country/minute. For example, if you buy this $ 5 card and you’re calling to Brazil and the rate is 1cent/minute, you can talk on that card for 500 minutes because there is $ 5.

Some phone cards have extra start-up fees, etc. when you first use your phone card.

Most of the time, if you don’t use your phone cards in the period (eg. 6 months) after your first activiation of the card, it will expire and the card will be useless after that 6 months.

Answer by sotires
The catch in these cards is the connection fee. You use up a whole section of your minutes each time you connect. So they are very good for long calls, but if you want to make shorter calls (or get through to an answering machine) they are not really economical.
I prefer to use telediscount.com and webcalldirect.com. Much better value and easier to manage.

Answer by BJC
Sounds like there were some pretty hefty fees on that card. There are all kinds of fees on phone cards not just the rate per minute. There are connection fees, maintenance fees, rounding charges, taxes.

This page has a guide at the bottom explaining all these fees. It is a price comparison site that calculates the total cost of phone cards including all these fees. Here you can compare the worlds best phone cards by there true cost so you get the minutes you expect.