Advice on calling The Philippines

[thekfc]

I need one more piece of advice guys/gals.

A few of the ladies that I have or are speaking to have given me their phone number & told me to call them. Some later even told me why didn't you call me.

The thing is it is expensive to call them.

I had a few phone card I had laying around (BOSS, etc, ) but they were 24 cents a minute.
My phone/cable company (Cablevision) offer international calling for $19.99 a month but only gives you 250 minutes (4.16 hours) & if you are over by 1 minutes they add another $19.99 fee for another 250 minutes, plus if you talk over 500 minues for the billing circle - they will block you.

I looked at other phone cards - they are cheaper BUT loaded with fees.

I also look at Magic Jack but their international rates are also high.

Calling computer to computer & talking to them on the computer is no problem. But I need a cheaper way to call their cell - they want me to call their cell.

What calling cards or services do you use to call a cellphone/ground line in the Philippines?

Also when I find "The One" my plan is to get Magic Jack, set it up here as "local" & send the magic jack device to her in The Philippines. That would only cost $39.95 with unlimited talking for the year. A guy in the building where I work did that for his mom in Brazil, but I don't know if it will work for The Philippines.

[Capstone]

I need one more piece of advice guys/gals.

A few of the ladies that I have or are speaking to have given me their phone number & told me to call them. Some later even told me why didn't you call me.

The thing is it is expensive to call them.

I had a few phone card I had laying around (BOSS, etc, ) but they were 24 cents a minute.
My phone/cable company (Cablevision) offer international calling for $19.99 a month but only gives you 250 minutes (4.16 hours) & if you are over by 1 minutes they add another $19.99 fee for another 250 minutes, plus if you talk over 500 minues for the billing circle - they will block you.

I looked at other phone cards - they are cheaper BUT loaded with fees.

I also look at Magic Jack but their international rates are also high.

Calling computer to computer & talking to them on the computer is no problem. But I need a cheaper way to call their cell - they want me to call their cell.

What calling cards or services do you use to call a cellphone/ground line in the Philippines?

Also when I find "The One" my plan is to get Magic Jack, set it up here as "local" & send the magic jack device to her in The Philippines. That would only cost $39.95 with unlimited talking for the year. A guy in the building where I work did that for his mom in Brazil, but I don't know if it will work for The Philippines.

kfc,

I know that some of the guys with experience in the PR will chime in with some options that you can use for calling the Philippines. My only advice is that once you do find 'The One' is that you utilize a option which will allow you to capture the call details that you make to your girl so that you can present them as further proof of a bona fide relationship during the visa phase. There are some calling cards which allow to do this but not all do so be sure and verify that if you decide to go that route. I don't believe that Magic Jack or most other VOIP options allow for this although I don't have any personal experience using with Magic Jack and could be wrong - but of course you could still use Magic Jack and then augment its use with another option which gives you the ability to capture call details.   

[Ray]

Keep trying those prepaid phone cards until you find one that gives good, reliable connections at a good rate. DO NOT pay any attention to the minutes they tell you that you will get on their ads. Time them and see how many minutes you really get!

Always buy the smallest denomination cards ($5) and try to use them up in one call. We buy $5 cards for $4 and get about 25-35 minutes to a cell, maybe twice that to a landline.

Cap made a good point about phone records for visa purposes later. When you think you have found a keeper, make at least some of your calls on a system that records the details on your personal home phone bill. Check out the 10-10-xxx dial-arounds, which bill you on your home line and are not overly expensive.

Lots of info in the archives…

Ray

[jm21-2]

I use skype to call China and it has a call history, but it looks like the rates to the PI are not very good. The rate to China is only a touch over 2 cents/minute and it looks like they recently added China to their $12.95/month international plan.

Philippines    $ 0.198    $ 0.228
Philippines-Cebu    $ 0.198    $ 0.228
Philippines-Manila    $ 0.198    $ 0.228
Philippines - Mobile    $ 0.249    $ 0.286

Maybe some of the other voip companies would work better? www.internetcalls.com has good rates (.10 landline, .14 mobile) but don't know about the history feature.

[Heruamen]

i use startec (www.startecom) its 11 cents a minute to call landlines and 16 cents a minute to call cell phones.  I pay $10 and it gets me 60 minutes. Sometimes I pay $25 and get about 140 minutes. I have used it most of the time and its reliable. I was under the mistaken impression that i would only use it on occasion,however we talk on the phone almost as much as if she were a girl i had met here. So i end up blowing thru that 140 minutes fast.  Oh how I wish I could find some kind of international unlimited calling plan. But I am  not complaining, because I enjoy my our phone calls. I even sent her a load on her phone so she can text me or call me anytime and boy have those calls been coming. Startec does not have the ability to show your calls on record so if you need it for proof of relationship its quite useless but I like it.  I just call her on my home landline sometimes so it could show up on the bill as our proof.

[piglett]

well KFC i have used PINSONSALE.COM & was always happy with them.
check them out they have a bunch of different brands of phone cards on their site



good luck
piglett