Going on Vacation? Stay in Touch with Prepaid Cellular
When budgeting for that big vacation, you'll no doubt sit down with a calculator and figure out the cost of airfare, car rental, hotel, restaurants, and tourist attractions. But one cost that is often overlooked is long distance calling. While on vacation, you'll often need to make long distance calls back home. You may need to check up on teenagers--or place a call to the neighbors to make sure that no wild parties are taking place. You may need to check in with the office periodically. Or, you might just want to call your friends from time to time, especially if they are back home where there's a foot of snow on the ground and you're in Hawaii.
Those long distance calls can take a big bite out of your vacation budget. Hotels and motels will typically allow long distance calls to be made from your room, but what most people don't know is that the rates you will be charged when you check out are often very high. The hotel will usually add on a surcharge to the regular phone rate, and this surcharge can be substantial. You may wind up paying several dollars for a phone call that would otherwise cost you ten or twenty cents. And what's worse about hotel phones is that you may even know ahead of time how much you are going to be charged, and you'll get a nasty surprise when you check out.
The perfect solution is prepaid cellular. Even if you don't normally use a cell phone, a prepaid phone can be an excellent short-term solution for vacations and other trips, giving you an opportunity to know precisely how much your calls are costing you, and regulate how much is being spent.
Even if you will be traveling in a foreign country, this is still often an option. Using pay phones or hotel phones in a foreign country can be confusing, and even costlier than domestic hotel phones. When you reach your destination, check into whether temporary cell phone service is available. In some countries, you can even rent a cell phone right at the airport, use it while you are there, and then drop it back off when you fly back home.
Some domestic cell phone plans do have international features, although this will not be available in all countries, so check with your carrier ahead of time to see if you will be able to keep your regular cell phone when you go overseas. If they do offer this service, find out how much it will cost. Your normal domestic rates will not apply, and it may even be cheaper to leave your regular cell phone at home and rent one while you're overseas.
Article Source: http://www.articledashboard.com
Tom Spelling is a contributing editor to Prepaid Reviews ? a website that reviews prepaid cell phone providers and rates them according to service factors and customer feedback. The site offers reviews on TracFone, Virgin Mobile, Venture Mobile and many more brands of prepaid cellular service.