Phone Cards with Updated Calling Rates:

• International Student’s Choice
• Call the World
• Au Pair’s Choice

Click on the name of the phone card above for the latest rates or do a rate search to see the most current rates to your calling destination.

“How do I view the details or features associated with a phone card?”

When buying a product, especially online, customers often want to know the ins and outs of their purchase before they click “checkout.” Luckily, ZapTel makes it quick and easy to know your phone card by disclosing all of the important details and information.

To learn more about any phone card product ZapTel offers, you can either click on the image of the card or the product’s name. This simple click will bring you to the details page, which will list the phone card features, including:

• Surcharge per call
• Service Fee
• Billing Increments
• Payphone Surcharge
• Expiration Terms
• Call Origination Allowed
• Technical Support

Here is where you will also find if a specific card has certain specifications such as pinless dialing, recharge, card detail listings, and speed dial.

Also, at the top of the details page, you can click on the three other tabs that provide information about the phone card—Instructions, Access Numbers, and Rate Table.

By making all of these phone card details accessible with one simple click, ZapTel makes it easy for you to find the best product to suit all of your phone card needs.

Phone Card Coupon for Week of April 18th

Through April 29th, receive 5% off of your purchase of a new phone card PIN or recharge from ZapTel . Use the following code to receive the discount:

THANKS2U

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 29, 2012.

Phone Cards with Updated Calling Rates:

• Africa’s Best
• Middle Easts Best
• Europe’s Best
• India’s Best
• Asia’s Best
• Mexico’s Best

Click on the name of the phone card above for the latest rates or do a rate search to see the most current rates to your calling destination.

I never like to hear that any customer has had trouble with their phone card.  If it does come up, though, we know who you need to contact to make sure the issue is resolved quickly and you can get back to making your phone calls.

Every phone card in the ZapTel store has a Technical Support phone number listed for it.  In most cases, this number is not ZapTel, it is the carrier providing service for the phone card.  Click here to see a list of every phone card’s Technical Support.

The carriers’ Technical Support Department can pull up the details about your phone card so they can identify the issue you’re having and work to resolve it.  If you call into ZapTel’s Customer Service Department, our first question is going to be “have you contacted the carrier’s Technical Support?”  We ask this because the carrier may be able to see information about your card that we cannot.

If you’re experiencing call quality or non-connecting call issues, the carriers can generally fix this very quickly.  In most cases, a route change is all that’s needed to get your card functioning again.

Here is some information you will need to have available before you contact the carrier:

-  Your PIN

-  The access number you’re dialing (some phone cards have more than one access number so having the one you’re using is important)

-  The phone number you’re calling from and where that phone number is located.

-  The phone number you’re calling to and where that phone number is located.

-  A detailed description of the issue you’re encountering.

This information will help the carrier better identify where you’re having the issue so they can efficiently resolve the problem.

What the carriers’ Technical Support cannot assist you with is recharging your phone card.  If you need assistance with recharging your phone card, please contact us at ZapTel.com.  Also, if you contact the carrier’s Technical Support and do not feel that you’ve been helped to your satisfaction, please let us know.  We’d like to have the opportunity to try and work on your behalf to resolve the issue.

So if we’re willing to help  you with your issue, why should you call Technical Support first?  In about 80-90% of cases, the carriers can resolve the issue much faster than it would take for us to contact them.  We want to make sure you have the quickest resolution possible.  But if you’ve tried the carrier’s Technical Support and didn’t receive a good resolution, we want to work with you on either fixing the issue or finding a different phone card solution through a different provider.

For more information, check out ZapTel’s Frequently Asked Questions.

Phone Card Coupon for Week of February 20th

Through March 4th, receive $1.00 off of your purchase of a new phone card PIN or recharge from ZapTel . Use the following code to receive the discount:

TRSTZAP

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 March 4, 2012.

If you’re asking yourself this question and are reading this post, you’re in the right place.  With every phone card blog post you’ll find a money saving coupon good for one or many of ZapTel’s phone cards.

Even without a coupon, you’ll get great value out of a ZapTel phone card.  Phone cards offer rates that are up to 80% lower than traditional services.  We work with carriers who provide us great quality phone cards at the best possible prices all to give you the most for your money.

If this is your first time visiting us, we welcome you and hope you have a great experience purchasing from ZapTel and using our products.  If you didn’t, let us know what we can do to make it better.  We love hearing from our customers whether they want to rave about us or ask us to do something better.  Send us an email at support@zaptel.com and one of our Customer Service Representatives will be happy to assist you.

Phone Card Coupon for Week of February 6th

Through February 19th, receive 5% off of your purchase of a new phone card PIN or recharge from ZapTel . Use the following code to receive the discount:

SAVECENTS

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 February 19, 2012.

Phone cards are a great way to keep yourself on a budget with your phone use, no matter where in the world you call.  ZapTel has a number of phone cards that can help you stick with your budget and keep in touch with your loved ones.

The best phone cards I can recommend for sticking with a calling budget are either flat-rate cards or phone cards with no weekly/monthly service fees.  I say this because there may be periods of time because of your budget that you may not be using your phone card.  During that time, you don’t want service fees to come off the balance of your phone card.  The rate per minute may be higher than some of our other cards, but the benefit long term will be better.

To budget your time, first decide on how much you’d like to spend per week or month on calls.

After you’ve figured out this amount, do a rate search for your calling origination and destination.  This will give you a list of phone cards available for your calling need.

To view the flat-rate cards only, click on the link under the rate search that says Click for advanced options.  Choose the filter that shows flat-rate cards only and press Search Rates.

Review the cards available that you feel would best suit your calling needs.

Two phone cards that will not come up when you use this filter are the International Student’s Choice and Au Pair’s Choice.  Both of these cards have a 10% surcharge per call but no other service fees.  Take a look at these two cards as well when you’re evaluating your card choices.  To see how their rates stack up to the flat-rate phone cards, add the 10% surcharge to the rate per minute.  Here’s an example.

Let’s say that you’re looking at a card that’s 10 cents per minute with a 10% surcharge per call.  When you add that into the rate per minute, it makes the rate 11¢ per minute.

For more information about finding the right phone card for your calling needs, check out our First Time Buyer’s Guide.

Phone Card Coupon for Week of January 23rd

Through February 5th, receive $1.00 off of your purchase of a new phone card PIN from ZapTel . Use the following code to receive the discount:

CMPR2SV

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 February 5, 2012.

Every day, we come across new customers who see the array of phone card choices and don’t know which way to go.  Phone card math is something each of ZapTel’s Customer Service Representatives is fully versed in and this knowledge can help you better understand how your phone card bills and which card will be right for you.

The flat-rate, no fee phone cards are the easiest when doing math.  All you have to do is take the denomination of the phone card and divide it by the rate per minute and you’ll get the total number of minutes you’ll have for talking.

Where it gets more complicated is when you’re looking at a phone card with additional fees.

Just like when you had to solve math problems in school, you first have to have all the facts.  Find the answers to these questions first before moving forward:

1)  Where are you calling from and to?

2)  What kind of phone are you calling to? Landline or Mobile Phone?

3)  What is the listed rate per minute for the phone card you’re looking to purchase? (Be sure to look at the difference between landlines and mobile rates as the mobile rate is likely to be higher.)

4)  How long do you estimate each of your phone calls will be?

5)  What are the billing increments for the phone card you’re looking to purchase?

6)  What are the associated fees with the phone card you’re looking to purchase?

-  Connection Fee

-  Surcharge Per Call

-  Service Fee (usually weekly or monthly)

After you have these answers, start doing the math:

1.  Calculate the cost of the minutes you plan to use. Make sure to round the number of minutes to the billing increment indicated on the phone card you’re looking to purchase.

Cost of Minutes = Estimated Number of Minutes per Call x Rate per Minute

2.  Add connection fees to calculate call cost.

Call Cost = Cost of Minutes + Connection Fees

3.  Calculate the total surcharge for the card.

Total Surcharge = % Surcharge per Call x Call Cost

4.  Add in the surcharge per call to calculate the total call cost.

Total Call Cost = Total Surcharge + Call Cost

If you plan to call more than once per week, you would multiply the total call cost by the number of times per week you plan to call.  For cards with service fees, you would have to understand how much would be deducted either weekly or monthly from your phone card for this fee.

For more information on phone card math and an example of how to do it, check out our How to do Phone Card Math page.

Phone Card Coupon for Week of January 9th

Through January 22nd, receive 5% off of your purchase or recharge of a phone card from ZapTel . Use the following code to receive the discount:

DOMATH

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 January 22, 2012.

Phone Cards with Updated Calling Rates:

• Oceans International
• Extreme Talk Time International
• True North
• Study Abroad Student’s Choice

Click on the name of the phone card above for the latest rates or do a rate search to see the most current rates to your calling destination.

What makes the Giftster mobile gift registry so great?

By being mobile, you can take your Giftster with you wherever you go: while you’re shopping gifts, at family gatherings to help others make lists, while you’re at a specific store and you see things you’d like to add to your list.

One of my favorite mobile Giftster features that I can’t wait to use this holiday is the shopping list.  I already use my iPhone to make shopping lists when I go to the grocery store.  Now, I will have my Giftster shopping list at my fingertips loaded with all the items I’ve reserved off of others’ lists from my group.  And the minute I buy them, I can mark them purchased.

Giftster on my iPhone will also be great to use at Thanksgiving.  My mom, who enjoys Christmas as much now as she did as a kid, doesn’t like using the computer, but loves that I help her with her Giftster list.  She’s always asking me to add things on her list and check others’ lists for her.  At Thanksgiving, I plan to sit down with her, iPhone in hand, and update her list.

Download the Giftster app through the Apple app store today and have as much fun using it as I will this holiday season.

Why ZapTel phone card customers should make gift lists on Giftster.com

We know how much our ZapTel phone card customers have come to love our store for its great quality products, friendly customer service, and money saving options.

It’s with this same philosophy that we designed Giftster.com.  It’s an easy to use free application that not only will help ease the stress of knowing what gifts to give, but also helps users save money on holiday gift giving.

We hope you take the time to check out Giftster.com and, if you have an iPhone, you check out the free app.  We hope you love it as much as we do.

Giftster.com, a sister company to ZapTel.com, is a free online family gift list and wishlist maker created to help families give better gifts, spend money more effectively and stay within their holiday budgets.

You may be asking “doesn’t the thought count for anything?”  In Joel Waldfogel’s book Scroogenomics, he examines what he calls a $14 billion problem with gift giving.  The amount a person pays for a gift versus what the recipient values the gift at is a difference of $14 billion.  This kind of makes the thought count after all.  In this economy, who has that kind of money to waste?

For the past couple years, we’ve been beta testing Giftser.com to be that $14 billion solution reducing the stress around gift giving, making it affordable for everyone, and bringing back the joy that goes with giving gifts.

This is a great way for any family member to use - from young children to grandparents.  One of my favorite aspects of Giftster is that it’s not tied to any one retailer.  You can put anything - literally anything - on your wish list and share it with your group.  It’s not only great for holiday gift giving, but is also fabulous for any gift giving occasion like birthdays, graduations, weddings, and baby showers.

Creating a wish list is easy and sharing the gift list is even easier.

1) Press Sign Up on Giftster.com to set up an account. All you need to enter is your name,  email address, and birthday.  You’ll also be asked to set up a password for your Giftster account.  You can also set up your account by logging in with Facebook.

2)  Create a list by clicking on New List under My Lists. Here, you can add any items you want from websites, regular stores, salons or barber shops, even your mom’s or grandma’s recipes.  You can get as detailed as you want as well by entering in the price, where the item can be found, and further description so the gift givers in your life know exactly what you’d like to receive.

3)  Share your list by creating a group for your family and asking others to create lists, too. Click on My Groups and Add a New Group.  You’ll be able to send an email to everyone you’d like to invite to view your gift list and in turn, they can share their list with you in this group.

4)  Go shopping! View the lists of others in your group.  Mark items as reserved to add them to your shopping list (don’t worry - the recipient won’t see what you’ve reserved or purchased, but others in the group will see that the item is no longer available).

5)  Give great gifts. When gift giving rolls around, you’ll know for sure that you’ve chosen something meaningful for the recipient and have wisely spent your money.

You get all this from Giftster.com for free.  FREE!  Can’t get better than that.

Create an account and try Giftster.com out today and receive an exclusive phone card coupon good towards your next ZapTel.com purchase.

Click here to check out Giftster.com.

Coming Soon - Giftster.com Wishlist iPhone App

Like Giftster on Facebook and be one of the first to know when the Giftster iPhone App is ready.