Calling from US to TravelSim
 

We purchased a phone and a TravelSim card. We are trying to compare the costs of various phone cards for our daughters to use to call us from the USA while we are traveling. Do we use the rates from the USA to Russia (where we will be) or to Estonia (where the phone number of the sim card originates)?

Thank you for your help. (also if you have recommendations for a good phone card those would be appreciated also)

And I am assuming that we cannot use a phone card in conjunction with the TravelSim card for our outgoing calls?

You have to look for Estonia-Mobile. Note that Estonia landline will be cheaper, but your travelSIM has a mobile number.

Calling that Estonia mobile number can be quite expensive. A lot of carriers refuse to even connect to it. You may want to look at cards from uniontelecard.com. I have used their "Mega Clean" and "Purple" cards in the past. Not sure what their rates are to Estonia mobile though.

If your dauters are comfortable making calls off the PC, then a cheap option may be to use Smartvoip.com who charge around 0.10 USD/min to Estonia Mobile.

Also, depending on where you are in the USA or if they have some free minutes on their mobiles (or an inclusive landline plan) then the same company has local access numbers in New York, Newark, LA and San Antonio so that you can also make calls at the same rate from the phone, and basically use the service just like a phone card.

However, I am not sure how reliable the above company (which is part of Betamax) is for calling that destination. I have no experience, but other users here may!

I would not use betamax clones for calling Estonia mobiles (especially those prefixes used for travelsim). I have tried many times and most calls would not get through. The call was charged some times but not connected.

Thanks
 

Thanks everyone for your responses!