Compare
There are a lot of prepaid calling cards out there and there are some major differences between the fees they charge. If you’re serious about getting the most out of your hard earned dollar, take the time to compare different phone cards.

always read the small print on the term and conditions.
Be aware of why prepaid calling cards are so profitable for long distance carriers: Let’s say you purchase a prepaid calling card for $50 and this card has an extremely low per minute rate but a $1 connection fee for each call. You make your calls until you have $0.90 worth of minutes on the card. Guess what? You can’t use the card anymore because the connection fee is $1. All you can do is throw the card away, and the company that issued the card just made a free $0.90.

Protect your phone card PIN(Personal Identification Number ):
This is your personal number and should not be shared with anyone unless you have given them permission to use your card.

Find out  if there is a connection fee:
This fee is billed for every call that is connected. If answering machines, fax machines, voice mail, or pagers picks up, the call is considered to be connected. Connection fees vary wildly between different calling cards. If you are planning on making only short calls, the connection fee alone can “eat up” your cards minutes. Know the per minute rate: This is the rate that is billed for each minute of the conversation that the caller engages in and is usually expressed in cents per minute. Many prepaid calling cards will have a cheap per minute rate, but then a very high connection fee. Once again, if you make only short quick calls, check the per minute rate while knowing what your connection fee is. Even if your per minute rate is only 1¢ but you have a $1.50 connection fee, a 2 minute call will cost you $1.52. (You just paid 76¢ per minute for your call.)

Notice that Your card has expiration date:
Many prepaid calling cards will expire on a certain date. This time span is usually 3-6 months and is either from the date of purchase or the cards first use. If your card expires with minutes still remaining, all you can do is throw it out.

any maintenance fee?:
This is a scheduled fee that might be applied weekly, monthly, and sometimes even daily (the fee is normally applied monthly). This fee is applied to any card that has been used at least once.

Check the pay phone fee: This fee is collected every time that a payphone is used. Every phone card has a pay phone fee but these fees vary between companies.

find out the billing increment:
This is how you are billed for each of your call. For example, if the card has a 5 minute billing increment, a two-minute call will be billed as a 5 -minute call.