holiday calls

karin

I am going to Malta soon.

Can anyone advise the best way to call my family from there.
I have grownup children in Australia and New Zealand as well as a daughter in the UK.

I have, I think, the best deals on calls to them from UK.
i.e. Using my free o2 minutes via simply phone, (the calls are free).

O2 do a call bolt on for £1.99 per month for calls to the UK from Europe at very reasonable rates but what about Oz and NZ?

I know that I can also get a visitors sim, valid for 30 days, in Malta from''Go'', but can't find out what they charge for calls to the Antipodes.

It may well be quite reasonable as many Maltese have settled in the Melbourne area of Oz.

Any advice on my complicated question??

pin

Firstly I would NOT use your UK mobile phone to make roaming calls while in Malta, unless it was an emergency, you will be hit very hard for roaming calls, probably (but can't confirm) over £1 a minute.

Chances are in Malta there will calling cards like we use in the UK. It will probably work out cheaper using them.

Also you could text, although I think they will work out at 25p a text while roaming.

grumbler

'Make cheaper calls home when abroad' article ...

andy88_2

There are 2 Maltese networks; the other is Vodafone. Go rates are very much more attractive than Vodafone - 38p per minute off-peak for both vs 58p and £1.90

http://www.vodafone.com.mt/page/priceplans_con_prepaidpriceplans_internationalcalls.html

http://www.go.com.mt/ - press Tariffs > Int'l dialling rates

From what you say (free minutes) I'm guessing that your O2 is a contract phone, so their ITS (cost £2.99 a month - doesn't have to be same as billing period) rates are 58p outgoing, 28p incoming. http://www.o2.co.uk/personal/abroad/prices/callingwhileabroad/0,,133,00.html
If you're on payg the Euro bolt-on makes calls 69p outgoing, 49p receive.
http://www.o2.co.uk/productsservices/boltons/eurodesc

The advantage of the local SIM of course is free incoming calls. As it will mainly be family by the sound of it, maybe you can get them to call you back on the Go SIM or preferably the hotel, as the rates really should be be lower than the 38p of the Go calls.

If you'll need to be making quite a few calls to other destinations as well, it might be worth setting up a callback service in conjunction with the Go SIM, and perhaps the hotel room if you can get a direct dial-in number. Will you have web access while you're there? Or maybe set up an account in advance and then call CS to add the number. If you need more info on this let me know and I'll look a bit more. Call rates like this might be 15 to 25p per minute.

Or as grumbler suggests, look into calling cards. I think there may be a relatively small number that can be used from Malta though. Again. I could look a couple up this evening if you wish; I just looked up one US-based one that would be US56c - about 30p; hardly worth bothering, but US cards often don't have good rates for small European countries.

karin

It is a payg o2 phone for which I have 300 free offpeak calls per month and their international bolt on giving 10p/35p, (depending on wether on/off peak times), for one off payment.

At first I used these rates and a carrier number offering 1p per min. offpeak, BEFORE finding out about FREE calls via a carrier number.

I have looked into ''Go'' more closely and have e-mailed their helpline with a query re. calls to OZ/NZ from Malta, so will report back if they give me anything at all helpful.

andy88_2

karin wrote:

I have looked into ''Go'' more closely and have e-mailed their helpline with a query re. calls to OZ/NZ from Malta, so will report back if they give me anything at all helpful.

As I said, the tariff is on their website. Follow the link above and press Tariffs on the bar above, then International Dialling Rates

both UK and OZ/NZ are 0.32 Lm peak and 0.24 Lm off-peak

1.00 MTL Malta Liri = 1.60257 GBP

karin

Thanks a lot for that.
When they answer I will already know thanks to you.
That sounds quite reasonable doesn't it?