Customers frequently ask us if they will get a physical calling card delivered to them with the IsCard international calling card service. Though we do provide an option to get a physical calling card mailed to your home or office for a $10 fee, over 90% of IsCard customers do not elect to have one sent. There are a number of reasons why physical calling cards are not for the vast majority of our customers:

1. It’s cheaper not to have one sent - We charge a $10 fee to send you a physical calling card to cover our costs of printing, shipping and handling of your card
2. It’s more info than you need on your trip - the physical calling card contains all the access number of the 50+ countries we support and in our 11 years of business, we do not know anyone who dialed from all 50 countries on one trip!!! Most of the time you need at most a handful of countries and that can be easily jotted down onto a piece of paper to keep with you as you travel
3. It can be hard to read for some - Squeezing 50 countries, access numbers and dialing instructions to an area about 3″ by 2″ forces us to use smaller fonts which can be hard to read
4. It is not updated as often - Access numbers do change often and the latest and greatest numbers are not always printed on our physical card
5. It’s not “green” - Calling cards like credit cards are made out of plastic so using our “virtual” IsCard is more “green”
6. Wallet sized “calling card” can be printed from any printer - IsCard provided a wallet sized “calling card” which can be printed from any printer contains the latest and greatest information to make the most our of your IsCard

So that’s why we advise against elected to get the physical card  and that’s why IsCard is the smartest and greenest calling card of choice for travelers worldwide.

Hi Everyone,

So we are going to divert a little from Tips and Tricks for our international calling card, IsCard, today and talk about another travel related topic: Luggage.

In my 33 years of life I had a fair share of luggage stories. I’ve been through the cheapest-piece-of- junk-one-could-find-that-lasts-you-one-trip luggage to the creme-de-la-creme, top-of-the-line, who’s-insane-enough-to-spend-this-much-on-luggage, luggage. And, I must say price does not always equal quality however most good pieces of luggage are not cheap.

So what defines a good piece of luggage?? Luggage is an essential part of the travel experience from packing, to loading/unloading it in the car, to navigating through airports, to your luggage getting to your destination in one piece. Here is how we define a good piece of luggage:

1. Strong but easy-pulling zippers
2. Logical, intelligent location and design of compartments
3. Strong water resistant ballistic fabric
4. Padded and strong ergonomic handles
5. Freely rolling wheels that commensurates with the dimensions of the luggage
6. Wheel are as far apart as possible for stability
7. Fully Retractable handle that can support luggage’s maximum load
8. Empty weight of piece is reasonable (light pieces tend to be of poorer quality)

So based on that we’d like to recommend two brands:

1. Price no object - Tumi - Tumi is the creme de la creme. Everything is well laid out and WORKS. Takes abuse too.

2. The rest of us - Briggs and Riley - I was a die hard Tumi fan until I found Briggs and Riley. True they are not cheap but you are getting pretty close if not identical Tumi quality for half the price. And, their warranty cannot be beat - unconditional lifetime warranty no matter who, what, where, or when your damage came about. I tried the warranty once and its true: no questions asked repair performed at no cost.

So pick your favorite and buy it from Luggage Online. In our opinion, they are the best all around luggage site.

And don’t forget to take your IsCard International Calling Card whenever your travel to stay in touch!!

Happy Travels!

Hi Everyone!

I hope everyone has had a pleasant 2009 holiday season and enjoyed our great promotions. Now that we are all recovered (and Barack Obama is now President of the US), it time to continue giving you great tips and tricks about the greatest international calling card on Earth, IsCard!

Today we will talk about one of the most frequently asked questions: Can I use IsCard from payphones?

Well the answer is, like many things in life, “it depends” so let me try to make sense of it all in this article.

First, as a general rule, it is not in a payphone operator’s best interest to allow calling card calls from payphones. Why? Well the answers is pretty simple - they want to “own” the call and charge you whatever they want from that phone. So that’s why it is sometimes difficult to make a calling card call successfully from a payphone. Here are some rules and tips to help you in figuring out if IsCard will work from a payphone:

From the US/PR/Canada/USVI: IsCard will usually work in these locations from a payphone. HOWEVER, the FCC does mandate a payphone surcharge to compensate payphone operators for calls to toll free numbers. Most companies charge $0.99 per call. We charge only $0.79 per call.

From Other Countries: This varies greatly by country. We have decided to publish a list of countries which we know are problematic when using IsCard from payphones. If the country you intend on using IsCard from is not on this list, it is likely IsCard will work from a payphone in those countries. However, even for countries that are not on the list, we cannot guarantee that IsCard will work from every payphone as many payphone operators still block calls to calling cards.

Countries with reported problems on using IsCard from payphones: Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland

Some countries like Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, IsCard has obtained specific number for use from payphones and when calling from payphones be sure to use those numbers.

Stay tuned for more news, tips and tricks next time!

Hi Again!!

So this week, we received an email from a customer of ours who asked: “Why can’t I use my IsCard International Calling Card in Egypt?”. While we do offer service in over 50 countries, unfortunately Egypt is not one of them. In this weeks post, we’ll attempt to explain why we cannot offer service in every country HOWEVER do offer an alternative……Read on for details.

The fact is in many countries, the phone companies are government operated and/or government owned so they set all the rules. So if they are trying to sell calls to the US at $3.00 a minute and we’re trying to sell calls to the US for $0.30 a minute, they don’t let us buy from them the access we need to serve their country. Little do they know, that it is alternative next generation carriers like us who can drive economic expansion by offering travelers to that country a cheaper way to stay in touch with colleagues and friends back home. So  we make the pie bigger for everyone so all can benefit; not take out of their pie. The US actually used to be the same way before the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which deregulated the market and fostered competition which basically brought the price of long distance way down pretty quickly. And, I think most people would agree that the act had significant benefits on our economy.

Despite the monopolistic practices of many countries, we do have a way for people to make calls created by Iscom, the same company behind IsCard. PCCall is a PC to Phone service which allows you to make calls from any PC to a regular telephone for as little as 2.0 cents per minute. Yes, you do need to have a laptop or access to a PC with an internet connection, but the savings are amazing. For more information about PCCall, visit www.PCCall.com.

We’re back!!!!

Yes after a short hiatus for all our “religious observances”, we’re back in full force. So on this post, we’d like to focus on using our international calling card, IsCard, from hotels because after all thats where most people use their IsCard while they travel.

So here are some tips to make sure you can stay in touch effortlessly from hotels while you travel the world with IsCard:

1. Make sure you get an outside line before dialing the access number! In most hotels, you simply dial 9 but we’ve seen, 8, 78, 99, and even 8888. Check with your hotel. The instructions are usually printed or right next to the phone. If in doubt just call the hotel operator.

2. Make sure you are using the access number on the country you are calling FROM. I don’t care if you are calling the US and staying in a hotel that is a US based chain like Hilton or Sheraton. Yes - its true - one customer thought that since its a US hotel in Germany you should use the US access number!!!

3. If you are having problems entering your card number, try press and hold each digit for one second before moving to the next digit. Some hotels use unreliable systems that do not transmit touchtone so well so pressing and holding sometime works.

4. When dialing the number you wish to reach with IsCard, ALWAYS dial as if you are dialing from the US, regardless of where you are. The hotel might tell you otherwise but trust us! So if you are dialing the US or Canada, PR, USVI and some other Caribbean Islands, its 1 + area code + phone number. If you are dialing another country dial 011 + country code + city code + number.

5. Use hotel operator assistance if necessary - Sometimes hotels do not program their phone systems correctly to handle international toll free numbers so the calls may be blocked unless you use operator assistance. Most hotel operators will recognize the number as toll free and put it through at no charge.

6. If you are using our toll free access numbers (vast majority of our numbers are toll free), make sure the hotel does not charge you per minute for the call. Some hotels do charge a per call “access fee” which is typically no more than $2 per call at most. If you did use our toll free access numbers and still do see long distance charges on your checkout bill, we suggest addressing it with the hotel manager or accounting department. The numbers are 100% toll free and the hotels are not billed anything from their phone company for these calls and therefore you should not be paying any per minute charges whatsoever from the hotel. Upon request, we will provide a letter certifying the number as toll free that may help with disputing the charge.

7. In a hotels that do charge an access fee per call, you can call multiple people on the same call by simply pressing and holding the # key for three seconds after each call.

Have fun where ever your travels take you and don’t forget your IsCard International Calling Card!

Those of you who have been our customers for a while know that a few times a year our offices are closed for religious observances, namely Jewish observances, when most others are open. Though our services are unaffected and are monitored 24×7x365, payment processing can be delayed until the business day following the observance. Our company always sends email reminders a few days before to remind customers to make payments on their account if they will need it. Yeah, we know it could suck for some folks who didn’t get the email in time but we think its still doesn’t take away from IsCard being the best international calling card out there. Plus, its one more way to show you that there are real caring people just like you behind IsCard and its website.

IsCard appreciates your business and should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us!

Even though its been a crazy week near our corporate headquarters on Wall Street, we’re back with even more reasons why is IsCard is the best international calling card out there.

6. Easy to Use - IsCard is simple and easy to use. All you do is dial the access number in the country you are calling from, enter your PIN, and enter the phone number you wish to reach. Best of all it works exactly the same in each country - the only thing that changes is the access number you first dial. Its that easy. All account come with a unique wallet sized booklet with all the information you need to make calls from all the 50+ countries we support.

7. IsCardDirect - Do you hate using calling cards because of all the numbers you have to dial and frequently use calling cards from the same phone? IsCard has the answer with our IsCardDirect feature. This unique feature enables you to presubscribe up to 5 numbers which would eliminate the need to dial the PIN when using IsCard from those numbers. Cool huh?????

Convinced yet…..SIGN UP NOW! If not read on….

8. SpeedDial - No one likes dialing as many as 18 digits just to call a loved one!! With SpeedDial, once programmed 18 digits magically becomes 2 digits. Pretty Amazing. We know your time is precious that can save you as much as 89% on your time spent. Its like converting one hour into nine hours, two hands into eighteen hands, $30,000 into $270,000…you get the point.

9. Expiration Policy - This is one of my favorites. With IsCard, your minutes never expire as long as you make at least one call every 365 days. We have customers still using a $25 IsCard they purchased from us in 2001. As long as you don’t disappear on us for a year, you’re money is safe with us (unlike many banks nowadays!).

10. Refund Policy - Within 60 days of your purchase, you can get your money back less a nominal processing fee of $5 to cover our costs of processing the refund. Simple and no questions asked. Actually we do ask becuase we want to always listen on suggestions how to make our service better.

11. FREE LAMBORGHINI WITH PURCHASE - Just kidding but the point here is we have a sense of humor :)….

Have a great weekend and stay tuned for more info next week!!!

Sure its easy for me to simply say that IsCard is the best international calling card out there and that’s why you should buy one today. But if I did say that it and just publish this post, it will make this blog pretty boring. So today, I want to show why IsCard really is the best and of course if you think I am wrong feel free to comment!!!

1. Coverage - you could use IsCard from over 50 countries. There is no need to buy a different calling card for each country you want to travel to. Sure, AT&Ts calling card has better coverage but who wants to pay an 89 cent connection fee + 99 cents per minute???? And thats only if you enroll in their “Savings” plan….

2. Low Rates - Our rates are low, honest, simple, reasonable and predictable. We don’t change them on you. We don’t charge you connection fees. We don’t have monthly fees. We just like keeping it simple - easier for you and easier for us. There may be better rates out there but don’t forget to factor in 5 minute rounding, your monthly fee, 10 days until your funds expire, your connection and disconnection fee, and the never disclosed “50 second” minute. Oh and how much time you have wasted repeating yourself because the guy (or girl) on the other side can’t hear you….

3. Quality - To create our service, we sought out the best carriers of the world -the ones who make the network connections. So you are not buying from someone who bought it from someone who bought it from someone who bought it from someone who bought it from someone who bought it from someone who bought it from the guy who made the network. What that means to you is crystal clear calls. That is not to say of course that we are totally immune to quality issues, but when there is an issue we usually could find someone that can complete the call at the level of quality you come to expect from us.

4. Customer Support - We take all customer issues seriously and try to address all issues within one business day max. And during business hours you could call us or chat with us, and communicate with a real live person!!!!! Yes -  humans still exist in the world and we’re proud of the fact that we still have personal service in our business.

5. We have a blog!!! Its kinda new for us but its definitely “one-up” on most of the competitors. The blog is for you (and us) to rant and rave and adds a little personality to our service. Hope you enjoy!

So there you have it and in case you are still not convinced that IsCard in the best international calling card, stay tuned for the next post which will be Part 2 of Why Choose IsCard??

Until then….

Its hard to believe that its been over ten years since we have started our international calling card, IsCard, and we thought starting a blog would be a great way to share tips and tricks we’ve gathered over the years as well as news, promotions, highlights, and support announcements about our service.

The blog will be updated at least weekly and we encourage you to comment and participate!! Suggestions for blog topics can be emailed to blog@iscard.com. Naturally we can’t write about every topic but we do promise to read all suggestions and write about the ones that will benefit most our readers.

Feel free to subscribe to our blog with your favorite reader using the links on the right navigation bar so you’ll get notification when there is new content posted to our blog.

That’s all for now!! Check back often for updates!!