A few people mention using calling cards (I use bigzoo.com personally) however I found that many of the calling cards - although they give a rate per minute actually have hidden charges. Well all of the cards that were sourced down here in Florida had this problem - even although this did not appear to be mentioned in any small print etc.
What happens is this
1. Dial access #
2. Dial telephone to be called'
3. Automated voice "You have 100 (example) minutes remaining....
So you chat for 25-30 mins and you have 70-75 mins remaining...well that was what I thought. It turned out that the cards I used although clearly telling me how many minutes of calls I had were not deducting the time according to the advertised rate and number of minutes used.
I called up CS to query this and even although there were no connection charges involved there were HIDDEN FEDERAL CHARGES. WTF???
Arguing with them was a no hope situation - so using the advertised rates of 5c a min to the UK and 7c a min to Hong Kong, it actually worked out somewhere around double that cost after deducting the "unknown" Federal Charges.
I highly recommend changing to the use of a web-based account such as onesuite or bigzoo - at least there the price you see is the price you pay.
For those of you continuing with the access card system available in shops etc - have you actually tracked the number of minutes you get from an ADVERTISED 100/200/400/1000 minute card?
One of the cards I used was the "Communitel" Europe - Tel Pre-paid phone card - service provided by Telefyne. Advertised rates working out to be only half of the actual cost.
Make sure you are not using the pre-paid cards under the "illusion" of getting a cheap rate
