[texas_girl]

LEBARA IS INEXPENSIVE
I've gotten two Lebara cards, each for less than $30 with €10 of credit (so basically, the card costs €10/$15). Each time I top off €20, I get a free €10. That's worked both in the spring and fall of 2009. So far, it seems to be a permanent promotion.

The rates are terrific to call the U.S. €0.06/min.+connection, and good for within Spain €0.15/min+con. Coverage is excellent. Not having a monthly fee if you're using it makes it great.

Incoming SMS messages in roaming are FREE. That was a lovely surprise.

THE CAVEATS
Though they claim they only deactivate your card if you don't use it at all in a 90-day period, this ends up not being true. They deactivated it (though it was still able to be reactivated) a month after I sent an SMS from the U.S. I had to call their customer service center to have them reinstate it, and the agent told me to call the customer service center every 30 days or so to keep it active. She said once they permanently deactivated the card, that was it.

CONCLUSION
In the future, I should probably not even bother trying to keep the card/number active. It's just that I had €17 left on the card and my phone number this time was so easy to remember.

By the way, Carlo and Andrea,
what a terrific website you have here!
la tua Suzie