Cheapest phone card for HK international calls especially to AU?

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  1. #1

    Cheapest phone card for HK international calls especially to AU?

    What's the best phone card to buy to make cheap international phone calls from Hong Kong? You know what I mean one of those cards where you buy the card and then call a local HK number enter some PIN number or whatever to then make the call. Oh and it would be good if it were in English (and didn't say "for English, press 1" in the local language like one I got somewhere else in the world!)

    Most of my calls are to Australia and maybe PRC/Chinese mainland/whatever you call it now (I presume this counts as an international call since it's a different country code), but I sometimes call other countries too like US, NZ or Malaysia.

    Thanks again for the help.


  2. #2

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    I'm not allowed to advertise specific ones, but you should be looking for a rate of HK$0.28 or less to Australia, US, UK, China...

    Worldwide House in Central has many shops selling a selection of prepaid phonecards.

    But if you are coming to live here you can get postpaid services for similar prices (at the moment PCCW0060 is only charging me HK$0.19 to those places) and then no PINs to enter!


  3. #3

    Answer to my own question abut cheap phone calls

    Now I use Skype. Fantastic. Free skype to skype and only HK$0.166 to land lines in Australia, including video calls.

    I had a 2.5 hour meeting the other day with 3 guys sitting in an office in Melbourne, and it was skype to skype so it was totally free. If I had called their landline it would have cost me the grand sum of HK$25. Thanks, Skype


  4. #4

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    Alternatively, Peoples sell a sim card which costs $0.25/minute but gives you free idd calls to 23 countries. I didn't check but I am pretty sure that Oz is one of them. Not cheaper than 0060's $0.17/minute but may be more practical if you are out on the road.


  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by discobay:
    Alternatively, Peoples sell a sim card which costs $0.25/minute but gives you free idd calls to 23 countries. I didn't check but I am pretty sure that Oz is one of them. Not cheaper than 0060's $0.17/minute but may be more practical if you are out on the road.
    People's 25hkc/min, is that just normal local calls, is it? Or is that for the countries other than the 23 freebies?

    0060's 17hkc/min, is that for just local calls?

    Also, I never have been able to establish whether calls to landlines and calls to mobiles are rated differently?

  6. #6

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    For HK mobiles the mobile owner always has to pay "airtime" for both incoming and outgoing calls. For outgoing international calls there is then an additional charge depending on the country. The Peoples deal is that your airtime is HK$0.25/min and on that deal they will not charge you anything additional for international calls to the 23 listed destinations. But not that these 23 destinations do not include countries where the calling party pays to call mobiles (e.g. UK, Australia). For calls to Australia mobile there would be a significant additional charge from Peoples.

    0060 is an international calling service that can be used from any phone as an alternative to that phone provider's international charge. Obviously if you have this Peoples package you wouldn't want to use 0060 to call any of the 23 destinations because the international charge from Peoples is zero. However, to call, say, Australia mobile from a Peoples phone you might find that it is cheaper to use 0060 than Peoples own IDD charges. This would depend on the particular deals you are able to get from Peoples or 0060 (PCCW).

    There are many other postpaid international calling solutions available as well as 0060, including 0080 (HGC), 1529 (IDT), Zone1511, etc.

    You would never use an international calling solution for local calls - these are always free (to both parties) for landline-to-landline, and always incur the airtime charge to the mobile subscriber for each end that is mobile.

    Note that many mobile subscription (postpaid) packages include large bundles of airtime within the monthly subscription. It can be a very complex calculation to work out what the best combination of deals will be absolutely the best for your circumstances. And unless you calling pattern is very predictable then you may never be able to always pick the best deal in advance.


  7. #7

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    The advantage of the prepaid mobile SIMs like Peoples IDD is that there is no contract and a flat per minute call rate. I top up every few months with $300 and as a result get a 30% discount - so this works out at 17c per minute to Australia (so about A$0.03 per minute) I have been using it for 8 months now and haven't bothered with a land line. That rate is mobile to landline - the rate for mobile to mobile is around 30c / minute so a lot higher. i also use skype - but find that I often don't get a clear connection - every 3rd 4th word missing! - its free so you pay for what you get.


  8. #8

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    Peoples' sim cards also have GPRS abilities and charge you $0.04/Kbyte.