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Post by Shmemily on Aug 8, 2005 20:36:01 GMT -5
Now that my travel plans are back on care of SWAP working holidays I'm back to surfing this site every day  I found out about thie ISIConnect phone plan that works through your ISIC card. Has anyone used this before? It seems like a really good deal, with cheap rates, and free messaging systems and such. Just wondering if there was any firsthand experience. Shmemily |
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Post by Shmemily on Aug 8, 2005 20:38:18 GMT -5
Whoops this might be in the wrong section of the forum. Sorry if it is!
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Post by Shmemily on Aug 12, 2005 7:11:31 GMT -5
If no one has used this does anyone have any good suggestions for phone plans?
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Post by dumbdiety on Aug 12, 2005 9:31:22 GMT -5
I've heard from others that TMobile rates are very very good in Europe, like $.39 a minute or something. Might be worth checking into.
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Post by LHR02 on Aug 12, 2005 9:41:47 GMT -5
And are you trying to arrange 'cell' phone service of some sort? Because frankly, grabbing a phone card from the local tobacco shop is always the cheapest way to go. Or using the phone kiosk type places that most larger cities have. In Italy, both WT and I have bought a 10 euro international phone card which garnered us 400 minutes (!) of calls to Us and/or Canada! That price simply can not be beat!
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Post by Shmemily on Aug 12, 2005 18:08:07 GMT -5
Woah. That's supercheap! I wasn't talking about cell phones. This plan just had access numbers you could use to make phone calls at reduced rates. Plus people could call a special number and leave a message for you free of charge. I'll look out for those local phone cards though. Thanks |
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paint
Senior Travel Member
Posts: 173
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Post by paint on Sept 11, 2005 13:29:13 GMT -5
(sorry just got back last week) I used ISIC Connect on my trip and found it rather expensive in the end... there tended to be lots of little "fine print" charges that got tacked on and I ended up using almost all of my $30 credit on one phone call from Prague to the USA. I had it so I used it but it would have been less expensive for me to purchase a card in the country I was in and use that. A good thing about ISIC Connect though is the voice mail... people can leave you a message for free regardless of what country they are in... and then it just costs you to check your messages. Since I was travelling to meet up with people and I didn't have a cell phone, it was worth the $30 just to know that people could leave me a message if they couldn't find me or couldn't meet me at our pre-arranged time.
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paint
Senior Travel Member
Posts: 173
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Post by paint on Sept 11, 2005 13:57:28 GMT -5
So I just checked my account history for ISIC Connect and the 16 minute call from Prague to the USA cost $12.90. As far as the voice mail goes they charge you a per-minute rate to listen to your messages over the phone, but if you have access to the Internet on a computer with speakers or headphones, you can listen to your voice mail messages for free through their website.
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Post by Shmemily on Sept 11, 2005 14:05:22 GMT -5
For free? I think it might be worthwhile just putting a little money on it for that purpose to use anyway... Thanks |
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paint
Senior Travel Member
Posts: 173
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Post by paint on Sept 11, 2005 19:51:27 GMT -5
Yes, it is free to check your ISIC Connect voice-mail messages through their website, but the computer you use must have sound (many Internet-cafe computers do not unless you take your own headphones and have the employees enable it for you).
There is a minimum dollar amount required to activate your ISIC Connect account.. when I did it that was $20, but then they give you an extra $10 for having the ISIC card. So, I paid $20 for $30 of call time. (Aparrently you can sign up for the calling card even if you don't have an ISIC card).
Anyway, if you only intend to check your messages through a computer then it might be better to just use email. I used the computer to check whether or not I had any messages, and then I listened to them by phone. It can cost you up to a $1 a minute to check your voice mail by phone depending on what country you are in... it is less if you don't use a pay phone.
For me, it was worth paying the $20 for peace of mind... knowing that if someone without computer access, or a friend waiting for me on a street somewhere in Europe, needed to get a hold of me... they could. I used it that way once - I was supposed to take a train and meet a friend at the station, but after waiting there half an hour and not finding him I went to the nearest pay phone. It turns out that he was waiting for me at a different station. Foreign language... I must have misunderstood something. We connected... my lateness forgiven... and we had a good evening.
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