? for Canadians - which prepaid calling card to call home?

I want to be able to call home %26amp; we are staying in a small guesthouse where you can only call locally. Do I buy a prepaid card before leaving Canada, or pick something up once I get there?

TIA

Clueless in Winnipeg

22 days til we leave for Maui!

? for Canadians - which prepaid calling card to call home?

I have used a company called nobelcom (online at nobelcom.com) for calling all over the world.

You buy ';cards'; in 20 min increments. They have 4 options for Canada (you can go on their Web site and select from US to Canada and see) ... they vary from 1.4 cents to 2.5 cents per minute ... the lower per-minute fee rounds to a 4-second interval and charges a maintenance fee of 99 cents/week; the 2.5 cents per minute card rounds only to 1 second and has no maintenance fee. I think this is the best option ... and a $20 card will get you 800 minutes. For $50 you get 2000 minutes.

You buy online, they send you an e-mail with the confirmation info and PIN -- so you can always access the info online through your e-mail if you happen to lose it.

? for Canadians - which prepaid calling card to call home?

Thx Konagirl. I will probably do this - I just can%26#39;t see on the website exactly HOW it works...do I dial an access number then give my PIN or something?

yes, they send you a local number, or a toll free number (sometimes it depends on where you are) and a PIN. Downside is their PINs can be a bit long. But upside is, it%26#39;s cheap and works great. I%26#39;ve never had a problem and have used it in London, Kenya, Romania, France, etc ...

They send you the instructions.

Another option is to stop by wal mart when you get here and pick up a prepaid card. Not sure what the per-minute rate is, but I expect it%26#39;s pretty low, too.

One great thing about Nobelcom is that if you lose the PIN, you can call them and they will give you a new one and deactivate the old one.

Went to an ABC store and asked about phone cards, and the salesperson was good enough to let us know that the cheap phone cards are available in either Safeway, Foodland or a Filipino store in Lahaina.

We bought $5 phone card called Street, that gave us approx 5 hrs - good for mainland US and Canada. Though, I think it does charge you a fee for every call you make. So you get the most minutes and value if you use it with one phone call (but don%26#39;t know if you plan on talking for that long in one phone call...)

Though the stores do have various phone cards that you can choose from.....

Maui in Jan or WPG--HMMM!!!

Walmart and Safeway cards, bought in HI. But check the fine print on cards bought locally in the %26#39;Peg%26#39;; last time we looked I think that we had decided a Walmart card was the better deal (bought in Calgary.)

For this trip (and a better deal to boot) we have changed our Telus calling plan to include the CA and the US 24/7 (+ 2000 minutes for $19.95/month). See if MTS or whomever you use will change your plan, even for a month. We have pre arranged times for the kids to call us.

We have also used text messaging, either for a quick message (Did you arrive home safely??) or to get them to call us.

If you have Internet and a laptop with you, you can send text msgs. through the Internet to Rogers cell customers.