Finding a phone card for a one time need
April 19th, 2009
“I only need a phone card for a one time calling need. What should I be looking for?”
So you know that you need to make a long distance or international phone call, but you will only need to do it once and you don’t want to spend a lot of money. There are a couple key things that I recommend for people with this calling need:
If you’re traveling, make sure that the card will work for the country you’ll be calling from.
When you do your rate search, make sure you put the right country in the calling from box. For example, if you’ll be calling from France to the USA, make sure to choose from France to USA. Another way to double check this is to look at the access number list for the phone card before purchasing it. If there is an access number for the country you’ll be calling from, then the card will work. If there’s not, then the card will not work from that country.
Know your calling need.
You have a one time need, but what does that mean? Do you need it for just one call, one week, one month? If you need it for more than one call, how long do you expect each call to last? The best rule of thumb I can give you is this: if you’re making long, frequent phone calls, a card with fees will most likely give you more minutes; if you’re only making short phone calls, then a flat rate card will be a better value. If you have the time and ambition, you can do the math to see which cards will give you the most minutes for your calls.
Stay within your budget, but watch for small order charges.
ZapTel carries some phone cards in $5 and $10 denominations. Because of the cost of processing these small orders, customers will pay a small order fee ($1 extra for $5 purchases or $2 extra for $10 purchases). Purchases over $10 do not have this small order fee. Now we’re not trying to make a few extra bucks from customers by doing this. It’s part of covering the costs of processing the orders. Our alternative to these fees would be not to carry these denominations at all. Many of our competitors have an order minimum instead of the service fees. They may carry $5 denominations, but you have to purchase a minimum of $15 (or 3 cards) to get these smaller denominations. We feel the small order fee helps customers to better stay within their budgeting needs while cover our costs to provide the product. This information should be noted with each card, and should be evident to you on the order review screen.
When in doubt, go with a flat rate card.
If you’re not sure what you really would like in a phone card or if you don’t have the time to research, your best bet is to go with a flat rate phone card. When you do your order search, click on the link that says “Click for advanced options” under the yellow “Search Rates” button on the search results page. Click the round radio button next to “Show only flat rate(no-fee) cards” and press the yellow “Search Rates” button again. This will filter out all the other cards with fees and will show you all the no fee cards in order of the best rate per minute to your calling destination.
Still need help? Just ask!
Send us an e-mail at support@zaptel.com and one of our Customer Service Representatives will help you choose the best card for your calling needs.
Phone Card Coupon for Week of April 20, 2009
Through April 26th, take $1 off your purchase of a new phone card PIN from ZapTel (does not apply to recharges). Use the following code to receive the discount:
1TIME1
Enter the coupon code on the Review Your Order page, and be sure to click the “Add Coupon Code” button on the page to apply the discount. Offer expires at Midnight Central Time on April 26, 2009.
Tags: calling card, international, one call, one phone call, one time, phone card, travel
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 at 7:05 pm and is filed under Phone Card Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
