Job Discussion Forums

[joey-iom]

a bit of a boring one I�m afraid, but was wondering if any esl teachers over here had found cheap ways of phoning home (home being the UK, but advice for phoning the US cheaply would be much appreciated too). Have been using call centers, which is a bit of a nightmare on a teaching salary... has anyone found cheap phonecards here? I�m in the south, so unfortunately cheap call centers in Santiago aren�t much use to me... but maybe someone else would value advice on that?
Thanks very much, hope those of you in Santiago are having a slightly warmer winter than we are down here... brrrrrr!

[AndyRoofman]

I am currently working in Korea, lived three months in Chile (Quillota- near Vina and Valpo), and have visited Argentina, Brazil, Sweden and Spain. From what I saw- (and Quillota, Vina, Valpo are small places) there are no low cost phone cards there (at least in 2003) in contrast to every other country I have visited. Can you confirm if this is still the case, or you have to use the booths for about 250-300 pesos per minute?

Regards

Andrew

[BigNorm]

If you have fast internet service, you can talk to family and friends through yahoo messenger or msn messenger. Just purchase an inexpensive headphone/microphone from a local electronic shop. Many internet cafes also have microphones if you do not have a computer in your apartment. While living and working in Santiago last year, that is how I stayed in contact with family and friends.

[Weona]

I usually use my cell phone to call back home (the states) but keep the calls short and it usually doesn't cost me over a few dollars. I used to buy a specific phone card (I can't remember the name of it, but it's sold at most metro/bus stations and just about all of the Santa Isabel grocery stores) and it would cost me about 2,000 pesos for 30 minutes worth of minutes to the states. That's about $3.50US for 30 minutes. Not bad. But that was for the states. You can probably find pretty good rates for the UK as well. What works is if you specify to the vender where you want to call and they usually give you the best card with the best rate for your money. Usually. Good luck!

[AndyRoofman]

Hi Weona

I know from your some of your previous posts that you work in either Valpo/Vina (I think). Can you confirm for me if you can buy these cards at Santa Isabel stores in Vina/Valpo and bus/metro (soon to be completed) stops. Or are these available in Santiago only?

Many thanks


Roofman

[joey-iom]

thanks for the help... i am heading off to santa isabel, temuco right now to see what I can find! Much appreciated

[Weona]

[matttheboy]

The lady calls me in Argentina with a card called Tarjeta International 155. For 2 grand you get about 24 minutes which works out at around 85 pesos a minute. Calling other countries within Latin America is ridiculously overpriced and it's normally cheaper to call overseas so i reckon you'd get around 30-35 minutes calling the US or Europe with 2 grand of credit. You can get these cards in many supermarkets and newspaper places.

You can also use www.skype.com for free internet phone chats. It works reasonably well and if you don't have an msn or yahoo address or, like in my case, you use a mac it's quite useful. You need a quick connection though.

[hubbardude]

There's a phone card called Ticket Inernacional, available at Supermarkets, Centros de llamadas, and some metro station shops. It was 65 pesos for 1 minute to US, and a bit more expensive to the UK. But there's no connection fee. Usually I could call home in the US for about half an hour with a $2000 peso card.

[matttheboy]

I mentioned skype before and i just thought i'd add that you can actually phone land line phones using this service. It works out at 10 (yes, ten) chilean centavos a minute to phone pretty much any land line in the world. Phoning mobiles is more expensive but it's still cheaper to phone a chilean mobile using skype than using a landline. You can buy internet phones that plug into your USB port and work exactly like a normal phone for around 30 luca-once you have that (and it's a lot better than using a headset) then you're set for incredibly phone calls (except for the cost of a broadband connection. I've got 256k here in buenos aires and it works fine at that speed).

skype got bought by ebay today by the way so it's a pretty big, established company. it has something like 6 million worldwide users.

[tiolee]

i was in chile in 2004 and used the 2000 peso calling cards to phone the uk. You got something like 20 mins for the 2000 peso. I bought the card at the local grocery shop so must be available elsewhere