Overseas mobile calls: low cost access and Passport

aroominyork

I need a mobile package that lets me call abroad, and that lets me call home from abroad. For calling abroad, I signed up to Just Call thinking I could dial from the UK to a Thailand mobile for 1p/minute. I called the 020 access number from my O2 mobile, used my PIN and entered the Thai number and was connected. When the O2 bill came through they had charged me at their own rates, so a 40 minute call cost me £30. The same had happpened for a call to India. This was strange, since Just Call's website clearly says you can call from mobiles including O2. So I spoke to O2 who pointed me to a clasue deep in their Ts&Cs saying they can not accept call forwarding. I am complaining because they accepted my call but did not connect it as dialled. However I would appreciated others' views on this: is this the same with all mobile companies now?

So what should I do in future, especially as my contract is now due for renewal. I have seen Vodafone Passport for which you can call from abroad for 75p, then minutes from your bundle are used. That sounds pretty good. But are there better options and is this a new element of the market that is developing and changing fast?

redux

When using these callthrough services, you need to resist the impulse to press the Send or green phone key as this puts the call to the access number on hold and then starts a simultaneous second call direct to the destination still using your O2 account

For use abroad, Vodafone Passport can be useful in Europe and other countries with a Vodafone network. 3 has free roming and use of inclusive minutes when roaming on another 3 network, but that's not loads of countries. In Europe, O2's My Europe Extra is interesting - £10 a month gets free incoming calls and 25p/min outgoing

Otherwise, there are several global roaming SIM cards with free incoming calls in many (60 to 100) countries. But in some places, such as USA, the only cheap option is to get a local SIM card.

See Martin's roaming article and its discussion thread for more

aroominyork

"When using these callthrough services, you need to resist the impulse to press the Send or green phone key as this puts the call to the access number on hold and then starts a simultaneous second call direct to the destination still using your O2 account." That might explain the problem. If I call Just Dial, then go into my mobile phone address book and select a phone number, would that start a separate call using O2?