Do you really need a phone card?

For use in emergency situations, even to disastrous levels, do you really need a phone card in an Disaster Preparedness Kit (72+ Hour Kit, BOB, etc)?

Assuming pay phones work or regular lines, where you need something to get long distance on, can't you still:

1. Call Collect? Is there any reason that wouldn't work when a phone card would?
2. How about a Credit Card based call?

Also a stupid question: I honestly don't even know if you can use one of the prepaid phone cards on a pay phone. Can you dial the toll free numbers on them without inserting physical money? You get the idea of my stupid question here.

Thanks for the feedback.
GoatMan

I have an at&t phone card prepaid that works on any phone regular or pay phone and has not expired yet.

Ymmv

Lee

I've got one from Target,I figure cell phone coverage isn't guaranteed and a collect call may not work if the person isn't home to accept it but with a phone card you can still leave a message on an answering machine/voice mail.

In the pay phone your card will be reduced by more money because there is a fee for using the pay phone. I don't think you have to insert physical money. The money is in the card.

It's good to hear a report that a prepaid phone card will work on a pay phone without coinage. I'd appreciate another confirmation of that fact to be sure.

Infrared: I didn't consider the part about leaving a voice mail message. That is a limitation of the Collect Call idea.

We do have a prepaid phone card that we use for all of our long distance calling. I should simply add the 800 number and card number to my wallet size emergency info reference sheet. That way it will be available for me in time of need, regardless if it is an emergency.

Thanks - GoatMan

I've used phone cards from payphones. Years ago, I found occasionaly payphones that were privately owned that wouldn't let me make 800 calls from them - the owner wouldn't have been paid. I have some hazy recollection that new laws mandate a payment to the owner of the phone, so this may no longer be a problem.

I think all payphones in the US give a dial tone when you pick up the handset - this is so you can dial 911 without having coins. You can dial 800 numbers without coins, assuming the owner of the phone allows it or the law has changed to require it; see the preceding paragraph.

How much does a call cost, where are you calling, how long will you talk? Do you have that many coins? And how long will they last in the post-disaster world (think New Orleans)?

My credit card is linked to ATT, so I have credit calls from phones as long as my credit card works. :-> I travel often to the French West Indies, so I make calls back to the US using ATT's French toll-free number without having the phone I'm calling from billed, although it's not toll-free to me - I pay for the international call. I get an English-speaking operator if I need assistance making the call or getting a number.

I recommend a non-expiring card because you won't always have a pocketful of quarters when disaster strikes. Since I have an ATT-connected credit card, I'm good to go.

An acquaintance of mine lived in Manhattan when they had a major power-outtage years ago. You couldn't get a dial tone on your cell phone. People were using their cell phones to light up the interiors of office buildings as they looked for payphones, which still worked.

From http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/PhoneWise.html:

I've done it scores of times. I loath cell phones, and I rarely carry change. And I'm often places where cell phones just don't work.

The big reason I like them in emergency kits is that they sometimes will work even when "all circuits are busy".

Before I got a cell phone, I always carried one in my wallet. It worked on every pay phone I used it on, plus I used it when staying with friends so as not to kill their phone bill on long distance calls. It wasn't really an emergency thing, just convenient.

We carry a phone card, "just in case," but I suspect that in a real "emergency," phone service will either be non-existent, or the circuits will be so overloaded that your chances of actually being able to make a call will be next to nill...

I've had a prepaid card that doesn't expire for a few years now, and keep it in my wallet in case there's no cellphone coverage or my cell doesn't work (no juice, broken, etc.).

The pre-paid cards work pretty much everywhere. They are so cheap, we cancelled our long distance service at home and use them on our home phones. We've also used them at many pay phones (no coins), and in Russia and Africa, no problem.

When you use it all the time, the card is optional, the numbers are in our head...

I haven't used pay phones in years. One of the issues I ran into was poorly maintained equipment, would often be able to make a call but the other end couldn't hear me due to crap in the mic end of the handset but still would get charged for the attempted calls anyway.
Then they started disabling the keypad after the call was complete. So you would dial your calling card company and when it was time to plug in the card number it wouldn't work.