Phone calls from Canada to US

On my Milwaukee - St. John's, Newfoundland bike trip last month (trip
report being prepared), I usually made two calls back to the US every
night; one to my wife, the other to a son-in-law who was providing
info on motels etc on the route ahead, as well as getting trip details
to transmit to the family.

All well and good until the bill came and I learned that the charge
was 79 cents per minute.

My working assumption for next year is to take a trip from Vancouver
to Milwaukee, after which I will have biked in the 10 provinces of
Canada as well as the 48 contiguous US states.

Question: what's the best way to minimize the phone bill?

Question: *what's the best way to *minimize the phone bill?

I use the Verizon calling cards you get at Costco. The International
Card will be cheaper to use for calls from Canada to the US, but the
domestic one will only be slightly more expensive per minute. I'm
guessing it is under 10 cents per minute.

On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:52:57 -0700 (PDT) in rec.bicycles.rides,
Ron Wallenfang wrote:

Question: what's the best way to minimize the phone bill?

Shop around for the best cheap calling card you can find. You
want to find cards that give cheap rates when calling from
Canada. Try online, phone stores, Costco...

On 2008-09-25, Ron Wallenfang wrote:
All well and good until the bill came and I learned that the charge
was 79 cents per minute.

My working assumption for next year is to take a trip from Vancouver
to Milwaukee, after which I will have biked in the 10 provinces of
Canada as well as the 48 contiguous US states.

Question: what's the best way to minimize the phone bill?

If your carrier is Verizon you could phone and see if they
still have a Canada roaming add-on.

My Verizon plan includes roaming in Canada and Mexico for about
$20/month more than a regular domestic plan, and I know that when
Verizon offered my plan they also had an unadvertised $10/month
add-on for roaming in Canada only. Verizon ceased offering the plan
I am on to new customers about 1.5 years ago, I think because changes
to the way Mexican cell phones are charged increased Verizon's costs,
but they might still offer the unadvertised Canada-only plan. You'd
need to ask their customer service.

If they do still offer this you could add it to your service before
you go and cancel when you get back.

Dennis Ferguson